pc crashes

[princejoe]

I've had this problem eversince my friend built me this machine. It keeps crashing, if I only surf the net , it will not crash as often(probably once or twice every day), but if I listen to audio CD by using the CD-Rom while I was online or I was listening to online radio while I was surfing the net, it will crash within five minutes, what I meant crash is that the screen freezes up, none of the keys are functioning, not even the ctrl-alt-delete, I have to press reset to reboot the system if I want to use it again, that is a pain in the neck. The weird thing is that it works fine when I played PC games, it never crashes even when I played some heavy 3D graphic games. It will be great if someone could help me out with this problem, thanks.
I am using the window 98 second edition with the following specs:
pentium III 600mhz eb
ASUS p3v4x VIA apollo pro 133A slot1 ATX
Guillemot 3D prophet geforce 256 SDR
diamond monster sound MX300
Maxtor 30GB 7200 rpm
U.S.Robotics hardware modem

[mjc]

It sounds like it may be a problem with whatever program you are using for audio (CDs and music).

Which one are you using?



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mjc
To ME or NOT to ME....

[Jumby]

I had a problem like that. Go to Control Panel, Display, Settings, Advanced, Performance tab, and if hardware acceleration is set on Full, set it down a notch or two. This stopped the problem for me. If it doesn't help, just set it back.

[andreadebiase]

I had this problem too and i solved it in a more drastic way. Format C: and reinstall Windows 98 second edition. Never had the problem anymore. Check also for any conflict in the Start-Control Panel-System-Device Manager.......and look for any yellow warning signs (i had none that`s why i formatted everything).
good luck

[blazer2boy]

Note:You should only format and reinstall as a LAST resort. http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/rolleyes.gif

[Paleo Pete]

I agree, only format and reinstall as a last resort.

Sounds like either the Hardware Acceleration settings or sound card drivers might need to be changed, or something is eating up resources.

How many windows are you keeping open while on the net? How much is running in the background?

Try shutting down everything possible, except virus scanner, and running only one window, see if it makes a difference. If so, something is eating up resources.

Video resolution might be too high, try setting it back to 16 bit True Color, and check the hardware acceleration for video and sound card. Cutting back the sound quality settings might be worth trying too. 16 bit True Color won't be a majior difference in video quality, and you can set it back when you need the best resolution you can get.

Make sure you have the latest sound and video drivers.

Run the Internet Explorer repair tool from Control Panel's Add/Remove Software.

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Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines!
Note: Please post your questions on the forums, not in my email.

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[sea69]

hi

as usuall I agree w/ mjc( or at least the line of thinking...) hehe http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/tongue.gif

Seems to me(with "256 ram and 600Mhz") that u shouldn't have any RAM problems at all no matter how many windows u have open.....

....if there aren't too many things running in the background.

Had u changed-installed/uninstalled ANYthing just prior to this occuring or is this always been that way ??

go to : start, run, type " msconfig " (without the quotes) click "OK" or press enter, go to start up TAB. There u will see all the things that are started when u 1st turn on ur pc. Experiment and see what all u can do without, also make sure u dont have a thousand duplicate drivers installed, and the above comment re: conflicts (yellow flags)in Device Manager is worth checking out as well http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/tongue.gif

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"Remember u r 'unique'... just like everyone else!"

[This message has been edited by sea69 (edited 02-07-2001).]

[princejoe]

Originally posted by sea69:
hi

as usuall I agree w/ mjc( or at least the line of thinking...) hehe http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/tongue.gif

Seems to me(with "256 ram and 600Mhz") that u shouldn't have any RAM problems at all no matter how many windows u have open.....

....if there aren't too many things running in the background.

Had u changed-installed/uninstalled ANYthing just prior to this occuring or is this always been that way ??

go to : start, run, type " msconfig " (without the quotes) click "OK" or press enter, go to start up TAB. There u will see all the things that are started when u 1st turn on ur pc. Experiment and see what all u can do without, also make sure u dont have a thousand duplicate drivers installed, and the above comment re: conflicts (yellow flags)in Device Manager is worth checking out as well http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/tongue.gif

[princejoe]

Originally posted by princejoe:

[princejoe]

thanks for all the responses, guys, it helps a lot. I have several programs in my PC, I downloaded "realplayer" for listening to online radio.
Then I have windows media player. Usually I used "mediaworks 98" to listen to audio CD, I think it came with the MX 300 sound card, cuz I never downloaded it.
Jumby, I did what u told me, the hardware acceleration was indeed set on full, so I turned it down one notch. Do u think full acceleration cause the problem?
Andreadebiase, format the C drive and reinstalling the window means I will lose all the files I have, right? I tried to see if there were any yellow flags in device manager, I am not sure what a yellow flag looks like, but I saw a yellow exclamation mark highlighted in yellow in my sound card section. In the device manager, I clicked on the sound, video and game controllers, then five different section came under it, first is HID-compliant game controller, second is monster sound II gameport, third is monster sound II MPU-401, fourth is monster sound II PCI audio, the fifth which is the one with yellow sign, is the monster sound II sound blaster pro emulation. when I clicked on it, device status saids that the device can't find any free"direct memory access"(DMA) to use(code 12), if u want to use this device, you need to disable another device which using the resource this device needs. Do u know what that means? do I really need this sound blaster pro emulation?
paleo pete , I have 128MB of memory, I ususally open about 5 to 10 windows, but I don't think that cause the problem, as sometimes I only had 2 to 3, and it still crashed. could u tell me where do I go to reset the hardware acceleration for vido and sound? thanks
sea69, I have 128MB of memory, not 256. I usually have ICQ running once I am online. It's always been like that, I downloaded the VIA 4in1 verion 4.12 driver for the motherboard right after the system is built. Guys, could someone tell me how to remove the old drivers of the video and sound?
thanks

[Paleo Pete]

The yellow exclamation mark you described is the conflict that was asked about. It means the device can't access a DMA channel to use, all are apparently in use.

In Device Manager highlight Computer and click Properties That will show a list of IRQ addresses in use. Click the dot at top that says DMA or Direct Memory Address and you should see a list of DMA's in use, and probably the same exclamation mark. What the troubleshooter was telling you was you need to change the address of one of these devices, or remove it. It's trying to use a DMA address that's in use by another device, or can't find one at all.

I would suggest booting into Safe Mode, and looking in Device Manager for any "ghost" devices. Anything that is listed twice, remove it. This might mean booting into Safe Mode a dozen times, but will clear out your Device Manager. If anything shows up twice or more, remove all of them. Then reboot, let windows find the device and reinstall it, reboot into Safe Mode and go to the next device category.

In the Disk Drives category you should have one disk drive showing for each hard drive, leave those. Same for floppy drives, If you have 2 on the machine you should have 2 in the Disk Drives category, leave them. Nothing else should show up twice in Safe Mode.

That might not solve everything, but it might help. If Windows is still trying to use a ghost device on a DMA address, it might clear up that address for the sound card to use.

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Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines!
Note: Please post your questions on the forums, not in my email.

Computer Information Links (http://www.geocities.com/paleopete/)

[Randy_tx]

Follow Pete's advice.....you DO need to clear up this problem because Sound Blaster emulation not working is why you are getting lockups I'm almost sure.

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Wore out my Ctrl/Alt/Del keys with Win ME

[princejoe]

thanks, Paleo Pete and Randy_TX. I went to DMA in the device manager, I didn't find any yellow exclamation mark, instead, I found this:
setting hardware using the setting
00 ECP printer part (LPT1)
01 In use by unknown device
02 standard floppy disk controller
03 In use by unknown device
04 direct memory access controller

I don't need any yellow exclamation on any of these tho.

Could someone please tell me how to remove old drivers of the video card and sound card? If I have to update a new driver for the P3V4X motherboard, how can I remove the old one? Thanks

[Randy_tx]

Does your mobo have "on-board" sound and/or video?? If either is the case, I think I know why you are having problems! You need to disable these things prior to loading the new cards' drivers. If you have question marks anywhere in Device Manager, then the device is active but the drivers are not installed and all hell can break loose! I'm confused I guess.

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Wore out my Ctrl/Alt/Del keys with Win ME

[princejoe]

thanks for the response, Randy_tx. Sorry if I asked some stupid questions, I am not really a computer expert. You asked me if my motherboard have "on-board video or sound", u mean are they built in or not, right?
No, it doesn't come with any video or sound card... I didn't see any question marks in the device manager, I only saw a yellow exclamation mark under the "sound,video and game controllers" device, that is the sound card, right?

Paleo, I rebooted in safe mode, I did what u told me to, delete anything shows twice or more, and I found there were four old CD-Rom drives in there(two for creative lab 52x, a good one, I replaced it with a delta 48x after the creative went down, then I found out that the Delta doesn't work, so I returned it and got a generic drive which made in Korea). Anyway, I found two drive for the creative lab, and two for the Delta, and one for the current drive, so I delete the old ones. Then underneath the disk drive, I saw a generic ide disk type 47 and a generic NEC floppy disk, I only have one floppy drive, but two drives showed up, should I delete one of them? Then the HID,"human interface device",
it has HID compliant device, and two "USB Human interface devices", this one I should keep, right? Under the Monitor, I have two items, one is "default monitor", second is "super VGA 1280x1024@75mhz. Should I keep them both? Then the "sound,video and game controllers", this is the sound card, right? After I clicked on it, there are many items came underneath it, lots of them were duplicated, I removed those that were double. When I tried to delete "monster sound II PCI audio", the system saids that it's part of the multi-function device, it can't be independently, in order to remove it, u have to select and remove the multi-function parents. This will remove any other devices that part of the multi-function device. The next is the "system device", I clicked on it, and I saw not two, but 4 "ACPI IRQ holder for PCI IRQ steering", and 2 "motherboard resources", should I keep them or delete them?

[mjc]

The ACPI holders are about the only thing that regularly come in multiples. (four sounds about right, one for each 'plug and pray' device). You should problably save them until last. If you delete one for a "ghost device" before you get rid of it then Windows will put it back on the next boot but if you get rid of all the multiple devices first and delete all of the ACPI holders then Windows will only put back the ones it needs.

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mjc
To ME or NOT to ME....

[princejoe]

Thanks,mjc. Sorry if I asked u some stupid questions, I am not really a computer expert. I was kind of confused, as u mention, there suppose to be 4 ACPI holders in the system device, so I shouldn't be deleting it, right? By the way, how do I run the new VIA 4in1 driver 4.25?
thanks

[Paleo Pete]

Don't worry about "stupid questions" it may seem dumb to you, but we realize lots of people who use this forum are inexperienced, and what may seem everyday and trivial to us can be a major issue to them. I don't think I've seen a question I would consider dumb or stupid yet.

Asking questions is the best way to learn, well, next to getting in there and making mistakes, but if you ask here, you may be able to avoid a few mistakes, and we rarely consider a question stupid unless it's something really dumb, like "How do I plug in the power cord"...Which I don't think we've seen...yet...

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Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines!
Note: Please post your questions on the forums, not in my email.

Computer Information Links (http://www.geocities.com/paleopete/)

[Randy_tx]

How do I plug in a three prong power cord into a two recepticle socket??? Which of the progs should I cut off with my snippers???...i couldnt resist.. http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/biggrin.gif

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Open letter to Bill Gates:"I just want 1% of your net worth...I'm not greedy"

[Randy_tx]

The 4 in 1 driver setup for Via has a "Setup" icon....when you click it you will have choices to make. Generally, you will want to install all of the drivers except the Bus Mastering drivers ....read the readme FIRST !

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Open letter to Bill Gates:"I just want 1% of your net worth...I'm not greedy"

[princejoe]

Thanks, Paleo pete and Randy. I'm still having problem adding/removing the driver... I detele the multi-function adapter which contained the sound card driver, but after rebooting the system, it couldn't locate the new driver I downloaded this morning, so the PC automatically got the old driver back. samething happened for 4in1 driver, when I tried to install it by clicking on setup.exe......but a box pops out saids, can't install:
setup or install programs filename contains folder information. use actions/checkout instead. Can someone tell me what that means, and what should I do? Thanks

[Paleo Pete]

Don't know about the 4-in-1 drivers, but for the driver you downloaded, unzip it first. When you tried to install it, all the install wizard found was a zip file. Double click the file you downloaded, and it should unzip itself into the same folder, so copy it to its own folder before unzipping.

randy: Cut off the left prong...just above the first knuckle... http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/biggrin.gif

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Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines!
Note: Please post your questions on the forums, not in my email.

Computer Information Links (http://www.geocities.com/paleopete/)

[princejoe]

Paleo Pete, how do u copy it in it's own folder?

[Paleo Pete]

Open Windows Explorer, Click once on My Documents or another storage folder on C drive in the left pane to show the contents in the right pane. Click File in the menu bar at top, then New then Folder The new folder will appear in the right pane named New Folder and highlighted. Type in a name for it. You can create a folder on another drive if you wish, same procedure. That's your choice.

Navigate to the folder where the driver file is located, and click that folder to show the contents in the right pane, then scroll to show the folder you just created on the left. You might need to click the + beside the parent folder to show the new folder within it, depends on whether you create the folder inside another one. Drag and drop the file into the new folder, or right click it and choose Copy, then right click on the target folder and click Paste. Either way will copy the file to the new folder.

Then open that folder and double click the file to unzip it.

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Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines!
Note: Please post your questions on the forums, not in my email.

Computer Information Links (http://www.geocities.com/paleopete/)