Windows 98 (hangning in the balance)

[dr137@aol.com]

My operating system has now begun to freeze up and lock on me. It did this yesterday and to night...I have run scan disk, disc defrag., also anti virus software. I can't come up with any thing. I wish I knew what the source of the problem is can any one help? thanks

[Whyzman]

Does it do so in SAFEMODE?

Have you added anything to your system recently?

You might want to try an on-line anti virus scan: http://housecall.trendmicro.com/

Following the anti virus scan I would suggest running HiJackThis and posting its findings here for analysis...

[Paleo Pete]

I agree with the above, but run Adaware and Spybot first, remove all they find.

Also boot into Safe Mode and check Device Manager for duplicate entries, remove any of those (identical hardware entries.)

Lockups can also be caused by bad, failing or flaky RAM, any number of drivers but primarily video drivers (update them or go back to an earlier driver that works right), programs trying to access memory already allocated to another program, heat, lots of desktop graphics or high color depth with insufficient RAM and/or video RAM, wrong BIOS memory settings, recently installed software, spyware, insufficient drive space for a swap file, corrupted system files...the list goes on...

[korky45]

Just as a matter of interest you don't say how much RAM your using. Windows 98 SE can have problems with large amounts of RAM (512mb) installed.

If you problem is not related to maleware or overheating you might like to make sure you have all the updates for your operating system. Have a look here

http://exuberant.ms11.net/98sesp.html

I have found this download useful when working with Window 98SE - lots of folk still run with this system and the download fixes a lot of well known problems as well as some that MS never got around to.

Of course it wont fix anything like the problems that Whyzman or Paleo Pete describe so make sure you are clear in those areas first.

[dr137@aol.com]

I am still having intermittent problems with my pc hanging after Windows 98 boot up the mouse will freeze and I will have to reboot. I understand that I may have a memory problem. Can someone walk me through the MEMTEST86.com download? Also how do I down load HiJackThis?
My computer also goes to a blank screen after boot up as well. thanks

[Sylvander]

I suggest you make these:
How to make a “Smart Boot Manager” floppy
http://www.pcguide.com/vb/showthread.php?t=41498
This makes it easier to boot a chosen drive [particularly the one holding the EBCD].

How to make an EBCD bootable CD
http://www.pcguide.com/vb/showthread.php?t=41485
This has a number of useful utilities included including "Image" [for DOS, by Terabyte] & "File Manager".

Memtest is one of the programs included on the EBCD.

[dr137@aol.com]

This is a reply to Palo Pete, I did go into device manager and did find some duplicate entries, I found 5 entries for "IRQ Holder For PCI IRQ Steering" what does this mean and should I delete all 4 and leave 1.

I also have an Internal Modem, which works on and off,(sometimes I loose my connection and this just happened tonight) I found a couple network dial up adapters in Device Manager and got rid of them both was this the right thing to do as I have an internal Modem. What else needs to be done, and How do I go about trouble shooting all of the problems you mentioned? Thank you for the information you gave me so far.

[korky45]

Duplicate drivers in Device Manager are an odd phenomenon of Windows. It is known as Ghosting. There are many reasons offered why this happens - but none I've read appear conclusive. You did the right thing to delete both drivers. If you delete only one driver it may not be the ghost you deleted. On the next boot-up Windows should want to reload the correct driver. You may want to have your disks handy for this. If its a generic driver you'll need the Win 98 disk.

[Sylvander]

"I found 5 entries for "IRQ Holder For PCI IRQ Steering" what does this mean and should I delete all 4 and leave 1."
I think you should leave those alone.
When I had Win98 1st edition installed I had multiple copies of those.
I believe they permit the sharing of IRQ's between multiple devices.
If you "View Devices by Type" are they all grouped in one location?
I notice that now that I have Win98SE there are none of these in my PC's Device Manager.
Which version of Win98 do you have?

"I found a couple network dial up adapters in Device Manager and got rid of them both was this the right thing to do"
I think this the right thing to do; the adapter would be detected at the next boot. Was the adapter redetected and the Windows CD asked for?
I used the EBCD [showed how at the bottom of that thread] to copy my Windows installation files to a partition other than C: and installed [you could do this and run a re-install] from there, then left the files permanently in that location. When Windows needs any files [like a driver] it fetches them in a flash from that location [no need to ask for the Windows installation CD].

"My operating system has now begun to freeze up and lock on me"
How much RAM do you have fitted?
How many programs running in the background.
How well does the system run in "Safe Mode" and/or "msconfig->Diagnostic Mode"?

[Paleo Pete]

1. Did you run adaware and spybot as advised above? That's a necessary step, almost every computer that we deal with these days is loaded down with malware. If you haven't scanned it, you need to.

2. Internal modems these days are almost all winmodems, that means designed for Windows and using your CPU and RAM instead of a chip on the card to do the "grunt work" for Internet surfing. These modems are flaky at best, prone to slow connections and disconnects, and highly susceptible to bad phone line problems and line noise. Also the disconnects could possibly be related to malware, but I doubt it. But if something is trying to connect in the background and overloads things, it could feasibly disconnect...that's just a guess though...

3. "IRQ holder for PCI IRQ steering" should normally show several instances, don't remove any of them. Leave the Dial upo Adapters alone, normally you should only have one, but AOL installs its own, and in some cases it's normal to have a second one that says for VPN I think, can't remember the exact terminology. The Dial Up Adapter is the software that does the actual dialing when the modem connects to the Internet. ALl Dial Up Adapters usually should be left alone unless one is from AOL and AOL has been uninstalled. AOL is not good about removing tons of garbage that is not needed, including lots of registry entries.

The Device Manager entries I was referring to are hardware entries...things like modem, sound card, video card CD ROM etc. Win98 is notorious for loading duplicates, which results in what we call "ghost drivers" and often causes peoblems, Windows isn't sure which driver to use or tries to use a driver for the wrong hardwrare if different ones have been installed, such as when upgrading a video card. If the old one is not completely uninstalled, the drivers stick around and Windows can still sometimes try to use it. The only way to remove or even see these is in Safe Mode.

4. How much RAM do you have? That has been asked already as well, and for a reason. Win98 gets really flaky with over 512MB RAM because it runs out of virtual cacheing addresses.

[dr137@aol.com]

Thanks Palo Pete,
regarding question 2 I should have told you that I have an internal cable modem. since I have an internal cable modem is it still subjected to all phone noise and disconnects?
by the way I did delete the dial up adaptors from aol as I do not have dial up system any more but a cable system. Was this still a mistake? at any rate I am still able to connect AOL through my cable server. Is there any better internal cable system that you may know of that doesn't use the systems resources?

I went through all of the hardware items in safe mode as you instructed and everything else seemed to be OK. I will leave the IRQ settings alone.thanks