Periodic 10 second hang?

[oldlefty]

This has been bugging me for over a year. I had a Gateway 120 system, Win 95 that ran fine. In a short period of time I upgraded to Win 98 (2nd Ed.), added a larger Maxtor HD (13GB), and tried to install a DRUDMA66Ultra ATA/66 Controller Card that came bundled with the HD. (I could never get the card to work and have removed it). Shortly after that I began noticing a periodic hang. Every 15 minutes or so the machine would hang for about 10 seconds, then continue fine. Sound being played during the hang would "rapid-fire repeat" during the hang, anything typed during the hang doesn't show up on the screen until the hang stops, then it fills in. The HD light stops during the hang and the cursor doesn't respond.

I have since migrated componants to an assembled machine with an Abit motherboard, Celeron 366, and the problem continues. I took out my old (smaller) HD that had the same contents and OS, installed it in my daughter's machine, and she doesn't have the problem.

Any suggestions? Thanks.

[ski]

First, start in Safe mode and make sure the controller card is removed from Device Manager. If it's still there, write down all of the drivers for it, remove the card from the Dev. Mgr. list, and delete all of its drivers.
Then, make sure all cards and the CPU are fully inserted.
Next, replace the new HD with the old one from your daughter's machine. And also include the IDE cable from her computer.
If that works, then either the new HD or its IDE cable is bad.
If the problem continues with the old HD installed, then do a Windows reinstall.

[bassman]

Hi Oldlefty and welcome,
If you have installed the 13G harddrive into a new machine, then you need to do a fresh install anyway.If you have done this, then did you install the controller card on the new mobo? If so, then like Ski said, take a look at Device manager to see if you have conflicts.
Is this the drive you boot from? I think you would need to disable the IDE onboard controller in order to boot from the controller card.
Let us know http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/cool.gif

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Quotes from "Lifes Little Instruction Book" by H.Jackson Brown: 409)Wage war against littering! Frank's Place (http://www.members.aol.com/frankscompsrvice)

[oldlefty]

Thanks, guys! The DRUDMA card was still on Device Manager, but I removed it before checking the drivers (damn...). The 13 GB HD was installed into an existing machine as an upgrade. It is the drive I boot from. I had the two drives in for a while, then put the old one in my daughter's machine. She's away at school now so I don't have access to it at the moment. I know the CPU is seated all right (see my other post!), I'll check the other cards. I have a new video card coming (current one is 7 years old- 2MB!), looking forward to being able to play Grand Prix Legends at faster than 3 fps http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/wink.gif

Funny thing is the hang isn't random, it's pretty regular- and it always lasts the same 8-10 seconds.

Thanks again for the advice.

[bassman]

have you tried a Virus scan???


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Quotes from "Lifes Little Instruction Book" by H.Jackson Brown: 409)Wage war against littering! Frank's Place (http://www.members.aol.com/frankscompsrvice)

[oldlefty]

This is still a problem for me and I'm about to buy a new HD to try and solve it. Any other suggestions? Speak now of forever hold your peace (or piece).

[old_kid]

Hi old - Old here:

Not saying it's the HD - not saying it isn't but....

You know - I have the same damn problem - and guess what??

It's a Maxtor 13G Drive!

Only difference is I haven't made any changes to this machine at all

I've done all the standard diagnostic stuff - took out programs reinstalled etc trying to make it go away - no dice

Draw your own conclusions from that but consider this....

All drives come with bad sectors

Almost all drives have built in ECC that checks drives for bad sectors and creates it's own internal error map

Sometimes Internall ECC will mark a sector as good and error map now is inaccurate

Scan disk can't fix it

Cost of diagnostic software that I found SpinRite to name one - $90 bucks sheeshh!

Good luck

http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/frown.gif

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Good Judgement comes from Experience - Experience comes from Bad Judgement - but bad judgement is more fun!!

[mjc]

I was looking up something else tonight and stumbled across this (http://www1.rm.com/docs/PC/00/1257.asp). http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/eek.gif

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mjc
Computer Links (http://www.dreamwater.org/tech/mjc/index.htm)

Celts are the men that heaven made mad, For all their battles are merry and their songs are all sad.

[oldlefty]

Well, I tried the new HD option with no luck (and I was sure it would work). I bought a 40 GB Western Digital, installed it, problem remains.

I think all that's left is to reinstall Win 98 and replace cables? Still open for suggestions.

Just to recoup, I've got a new or different:

Box and power supply, motherboard, CPU, sound card, HD. The system has two CD-ROMs- one a RW. Still have the 10 sec. hang every 10 minutes- whether I need it or not . http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif Thanks

[oldlefty]

Well, I had coppied the image of the old drive onto the new one. Suppose I cleaned off the new drive and reinstalled Win 98 onto it and see if it ran OK without all the other "stuff" on the drive (I guess that assumes it's software, not hardware related)? Think that will help? Can you give me or point me to a quick tutorial on how to do the reinstall on a clean second drive? Thanks again.

[mjc]

What version of 98? If it is "se" then you should ba able to boot to the CD...if you machine supports that (if the BIOS allows you to set the CD as a boot option then you should be able to boot to it).

So first you will need to use a bootdisk (98 disk) to boot, then remove the existing partition(s) using fdisk (Using fdisk (http://www.compguystechweb.com/troubleshooting/fdisk/fdisk_scr.html)). Then reboot, use fdisk again to create a partition, reboot then format (all with the bootdisk), then when the formatting is finished reboot to the CD, from there on it should be automatic.

If you can't boot to the CD then the final step gets changed, boot to the bootdisk again, this time when it asks about booting with CD-ROM support select "Yes"...then insert the CD and change to the CD drive and run "setup".

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mjc
Computer Links (http://www.dreamwater.org/tech/mjc/index.htm)

Celts are the men that heaven made mad, For all their battles are merry and their songs are all sad.


Please Post Questions in the forums, not my email. Thanks

[oldlefty]

Thanks mjc.

This hangup problem still exists and has taken another curious twist. The guy at my local computer store says he's 99% sure that it's software related. He thinks a program is kicking in periodically and tying up resources.

I'm wondering if it's TSR related? I did Ctrl-Alt-Del and got the list of programs running. There are 24 of those dudes running! What are they all? How do I find out what they are and how can I remove them? I tried shutting down all of them except Explorer and Systray and it appeared (fingers crossed) that my hang went away. At least I went 30 minutes without one.

These are programs listed with names like msmsgs, gmt, aim, cmesys, cnotify, loadqm, opware16, vssat, etc. I do think they are tying up a lot of resources. Whenever I play a resource-intensive game I shut down most of them to bring my "available resources" up to max.

What do I need to know about these TSRs, and how do I best manage them?

Thanks once again.

[rahulkothari]

Your computer vendor seems to be right. Some or the other program pops up and hence you can't continue defrag. Also many programs load at start-up.... most of which are useless.

This site (http://www.answersthatwork.com/Tasklist_pages/tasklist.htm) provides guidance on the usefulness or not of these programs, and removal procedures when recommended.

Also check out this one (http://www.pacs-portal.co.uk/startup_pages/startup_full.htm). This site basically categorises start-up programs into "have to load at start-up", "not needed" and "your choice".

There are few programs which do not display their ugly-faces in the ctrl+alt+del list.... also, there are some (i think) which do not understand the polite language of ctrl+alt+del's "end-task" ... so an all in one cure for such creeps is EndItAll (http://home.ptd.net/~don5408/toolbox/enditall/).

[oldlefty]

Many thanks rahulkothari! Your links took me to this very important piece of information:

================================================== ==================

Hppwrsav HPPwrSav.exe (Hewlett-Packard)

HP Power Save background task for the HP ScanJet 3200C. The original version of the Windows 95/98 drivers would cause the PC to freeze for 3 to 8 seconds several times an hour, would cause Internet disconnection, or would have the mouse freeze occasionally.

Recommendation :
If you have a ScanJet 3200C and experience the above problems, either download and install this patch, or download the very latest drivers which should be dated at least January 2002.

================================================== ================

And guess who has an HP 3200c scanner? I did the driver upgrade and went all day yesterday without a hang!

Thanks for helping me solve this longstanding and very irritating problem.

Namaste!

-Mike
:)

[rahulkothari]

glad to hear you solved your longstanding and verrrry irritating problem. :D

... and btw, Namaste means Hi ... so it should be on top and not bottom.:p and if you want to say Thank You, then the right word is Dhanyavad. :)

- Rahul