Old computer freezes

[Andrew]

I have an old pentium 2 300mhz 64mb ram 3 gb hard drive.

The computer seems to randomly freeze for no reason, and sometimes does not go into windows or takes a very long time(not thinking, just frozen like) to get to the windows screen.

I'm guessing it's a hardware issue, as formatting it doesn't seem to work (or maybe after formatted and I've installed windows updates which makes it freeze randomly).

Well silly Q if it is a hardware issue, but would it be possible to install linux on it and see if linux OS doesn't freeze? (EDIT: seems my old computer does not meet the system requirements for gentoo or ubuntu, computer meets the ubuntu server requirements)

I'm currently downloading ubuntu and gentoo linux OS. I will make a linux thread in the general board about which linux is best/good and apps/links etc at some point.

Also, my roomates old computer which is a bit more powerful than my old one, shutsdown when the computer tries to load windows. When it is restarted it goes the the message where you pick normal windows, safe mode etc. Going into safe mode works, although it is limited. I did a thorough scandisk, no errors.

When I try to go into normal windows after a restart it still shuts itself down (by that I mean it turns off) when loading windows.

Does anyone think that formatting will fix it or any other recommendations to try before formatting? (internet does not work in safe mode)

EDIT: Both computers run windows 98.

[Megashrap]

Wouldn't hurt to try Memtest just to rule out a common culprit for crashes etc.

http://hcidesign.com/

http://www.hcidesign.com/memtest/manual.html

"MemTest is a RAM reliability tester. It evaluates the ability of your computer's memory to store and retrieve data.  A correctly functioning computer should be able to do both these tasks with 100% accuracy day in and day out. A computer that fails these tests, perhaps because of old hardware, damaged hardware, or poorly configured hardware, will be less stable and crash more often. Even worse, it will become even less stable over time as corrupted data is written to your hard disk."

[Andrew]

For my roomates computer, I tried what windows online told me to do to try and fix why it wont start in normal mode (change msconfig settings, and system filechecker which did replace 5 files that were corrupt or something). No luck. I am on Knoppix OS right now on her computer as it has internet connection (win safe mode does not get internet connection).

When my roomates computer goes into normal windows mode, you see the windows screen loading, and avg antivirus scanner scans and finds no viruses, and it goes back to windows loading screen, then I get a c: at top left of screen (I think it might have been normal to be there) then a new screen comes up saying "windows protection error, press any key to restart computer" even if I don't press any key it eventually shuts the computer off (if I press any key it shuts computer off).

I will try the memtest thing on my old computer when I can get access to it.

[Nyarlathotep]

As far as your roomate's computer goes, I'd format and re-install. Epscially if corrupt files have been found...

[Andrew]

Ok, that's what they were wanting to do as well as it seemed the simplest option.

Also from what I just wrote in the linux thread in general board

If I cant find win98 cd for my roomates computer, I might want to format it, install linux, let them see how they like it (and if it runs faster than win98), and if they don't, find a win98 cd and format the computer again putting win98 on it. Is this possible to do? (Her computer is a p3 700mhz, 128mb ram 10gb HD, so it should run just as good as win98 ? It is not used for games, just school projects and internet browsing)

Back to my old computer:

Seems my old computer is not freezing a super amount as my father sent me an email from it (I was instructing him how to do so on the phone, how frustrating :P). So maybe it is good to go for a while as before if it didnt freeze on the startup, it would freeze when browsing the internet quite easily (especially when you would click on a link it seemed to freeze.)

EDIT- Seems Dukeleto answered the Q in the linux thread about formating/installing linux, but if you have anything to add feel free.

[Andrew]

I've tried Memtest, and I let it go to ~5000% and it found no errors in memory.

Something tells me it freezes has something to do with the internet. I remember when I had the old computer hooked up to cable high speed internet it would freeze when I would click on a link.

It still freezes, even when I boot from DSL (damn small linux), although it seemed to have something to do with the internet. The first time when I booted from dsl then internet wasnt working so I went into the internet settings to try to get it to work and it froze teh computer. The second time it froze when checking for internet connection when booting.

I am on the old computer now on the internet, and it migt not freeze for a bit, or it could freeze right now. Doesn't seem to like to multitask (multiple programs open).

Obviously I should try running the computer with the internet cord unplugged to see if it has anything to do with that.

When I say it freezes I mean it frezes nothing changes the mouse sopts moving and nothing is responsive and the computer stops thinking all together. But the screen stays the same (no blue screen)

Runing win98 so the internet options are not easy to find. The program that was once used to connect to the wireless high speed connection isnt on the computer anymore (but internet still works sometimes). hmm i dont need that program, as that was fro the small wireless card that was in back of computer, but now I just use a ethernet cord attached to a big white satellite box and adapter.

oddly I used to be able to go to star menu->run->cmd  and the dos window would popup and I could type ipconfig and get some info that way, but when i try to run cmd it says it could not find the file cmd. hmm.

Since it froze in DSL, it obviously can not be a software proplem. Has to be hardware related. But I ahve no way of figuring out which hardware it is. I don't really want to d/c each piece of hardware and run the computer, as I'm not good with playing with hardware.

EDIT: I'm surprised it hasn't froze yet on this session.

Attached is my dxdiag

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/archive/win98/support/trblshoot/trouble.mspx

looks like an interesting read.

2nd EDIT

Interestingly, it always freezes when booting DSL (2.0 and 2.1RC2), and windows hasn't froze yet since my first post. It usually freezes when booting or sometime when running win98.

In my bios I said yes to "is your OS PNP compatable" or something. Maybe that helped some. Wierd that DSL wont boot at all, freezes at different points, even a custom boot (it got to "is your mouse usb?" and it froze once).

3rd EDIT

After disabling OS runs PNP in bios, I was able to get DSL to boot. Once in DSL, I went to internet settings and when it asked "Use DHCP broadcast? Yes No" I selected no, and it went through some questions and ip addresses. When done I went back into it and clicked yes to DHCP question and it froze there.

Once I rebooted computer with DSL right after that when it got to a part where it said it was doing something with DHCP broadcasting the computer froze. This leads me to believe it could ahve something to do with DHCP broadcasting. Not that I know what it is :P

Rebooted after that and it took me to windows instead of DSL cd boot.

Tried again and the booting where it freezes is

"network device eth0 detected, DHCP broadcasting for IP"

then when booted agin and internet cord unplugged, "(backgrounding)" was after the above quote. It got to desktop and froze :P

[attachment archived by Gobalopper]

[Andrew]

Booting from DSL it froze randomly lots, 75% of the time not making it to the desktop (and then it froze when I tried to do anything internet related).

For some reason Win98 has not froze yet, so I guess it is fine to use for now, until it starts to randomly freeze again.

EDIT:

Today, DSL worked mor often than windows, and when I took out a 16 mb of ram and booted it said there was not enough memory to run windows which is bullshit.

Crashed lots today in windows and some in DSL. Internet not working in DSL yet. although I was able to try some internet tools without it freexing, which I think is because the internet was not working, even for windows.

2nd EDIT:

Awesome. Now my cd-rom wont open, my cd burner does open/close, but windows does not recognize eithor drive at all.

Under device manager, it is now reporting that

hard disk controllers -> secondary IDE controller (dual fifo)

is not present or not working properly or does not have driver installed (code 10)

EDIT EDIT EDIT EDIT....

Seems the green light for the cd-rom does not turn on any, which leads me to believe it has died. It seems to get recognized when booting (says in text what it is, ltn301 or semothing).

When windows is in safe mode device manager finds no problems with it, but in normal it shows a problem.

The cd-rom had been making more noise than it did a couple years ago.

When in WMP, I try to have cd music play and it says "no CD-ROM drives present"

EDIT infinity

While browsing the web I hear my cd-rom reading the cd, so i press the button and it pops out. wierd how that worked.

EDIT

cd-rom and burner are now responding normally. phew.

[Gobalopper]

Might be your power supply? 250W? And how many things are plugged into it?

[Andrew]

Hmm, I'm not sure. It is in an 90 year old house, so the wiring isn't the greatest. Not sure about the supply. All I have plugged into the outlet is an old  powerbar which has 4 items plugged into it. But that is not much, because in the summer I probably have 15 items plugged in to the wall outlet and it doesn't screw anything up (but I use my newer computer then).

The back of my computer says it is at 115 volt, and I could switch it over to 230 volt.

Windows seems pretty stable when I got my satellite box near a window in the other room so I got the internet. When I leave it in my room it doesn't get the internet (on the old computer, but my new computer gets the internet ok when box is not near window) and it seems more unstable.

[Gobalopper]

No I mean how many things are plugged into your power supply in the computer. Like how many CD drives, hard drives, etc. Because the lower the wattage on your power supply the less things you can have plugged in and still have work reliably.

I have run into the problem on my sisters old computer since it has 3 hard drives and 2 CD drives and if I plug in the floppy drive usually two of the hard drives stop working.

[Megashrap]

Because the lower the wattage on your power supply the less things you can have plugged in and still have work reliably.

Yea, 250 is extremely low. Weren't those made for like a 486 based PC? Hell by todays standards a 350w PS is kinda low but acceptable for most.

[Andrew]

I have 1 hard drive, 1 sound card, onboard vid card. 1 cd-rom, 1 cd burner, 4 sticks of 16 mb ram, 1 ethernet card, 1 floppy.

The number of things on my computer hasn't changed in about 5 years. I didn't have any problems with it randomly freezing often before I got my new computer.

Wattage? How do I determine that? Like I said in my previous post,

"The back of my computer says it is set at 115 volt, and I could switch it over to 230 volt."

[erjin999]

I believe that info is input voltage, which is just a setting for the electricty in your country. So basically doesnt matter to joe you/me.

I have 250W power supplies on office computers that dont do much work. Just Word and stuff. Admittedly its crape, but they do work.

[Andrew]

I am now having an internet problem.

I am able to browse the web, chat here on fed2k forums, google news, fark, boingboing, listen to streaming music radio etc.

But some things are not working right now.

I am unable to get to the page to login to my upei student account (can't get to linked page), I am unable to sign into hotmail or gmail, unable to sign into my bank account, unable to sign onto msn messenger (or Miranda). I am unable to get to gmail.com, I am able to get to hotmail.com, but not able to sign in.

I'm thinking it is some https thing wrong. which is wierd. All these services were working yesterday.

I've tried both Firefox and IE. (I also found out IE runs extremely faster than Firefox on this machine, but I doubt 6 plugins help it eithor.)

Any suggestions? Will try tomorrow to access these webpages.

And how do I change the wattage? The power cord that goes into my computer?

Argh, computer froze 5 times while trying to edit this post. Twice was while listening to streaming music on winamp, and once while booting to windows.

Now appears to be freezing every 2 minutes while browsing the web, although listening to music seems to make it happen faster.

major edit:

Wow, I just signed onto msn on miranda and am able to sign into my upei account. seems https (?) is working again.

Haha, I love how on win98 when visiting hotmail in IE, it starts msn messenger. what a joke.

[Andrew]

For the first time my computer rebooted itself.

I was browsing the web in IE, had free download manager downloading a 10mb file (going at 50kb/s) and the computer rebooted without warning.

While trying to report this afterwards, my computer froze while doing the same thing (but no restart).

EDIT

To report on my roomates computer, she took it in to a computer place and they said the hard drive was not working. Odd how windows safe mode worked if the hard drive had failed.

My computer worked fine last night for 3-4 hours without it freezing. All I was doing was browsing the web (Miranda was not running). Feels good to be able to shutdown the computer.

EDIT:

Computer again rebooted for no reason while browsing the web.

[Andrew]

*******************

Microsoft ScanDisk for Windows

NOTE: If you use an MS-DOS program to view this file, some of the characters

may appear incorrectly. Use a Windows program such as Notepad instead.

Log file generated at 10:12 on 2/26/2006.

ScanDisk used the following options:

  Standard test

  Automatically fix errors

Drive  (C:) contained the following errors:

The drive contained an error in its FSInfoSector.

  Resolution: Repair the error

  Results: Error was corrected as specified above.

ScanDisk found errors on this drive and fixed them all.

-------------------

Here's the scandisk log. Maybe FSinfosector has to do with the freezes :/