Freezing when on the Internet.

[Pernod]

Hi everybody,

An elderly neighbour has just bought a refurbished PC. It has Fujitsu on the case but i don't think anything inside is specific to the computer except maybe the motherboard. (There is no warranty on it).
The problem he has is everytime he connects to the Internet everything freezes. Ctrl+Alt+Del doesn't even work.
Could this be because of the slow processor, would more RAM help or could it be the modem.

P166 with 32mb RAM
2GB Hard Drive
CD-ROM
Sound Card
PCI Intel based Modem. (The box says hardware)
PS/2 Keyboard and Mouse.
Windows 98se.

There are no IRQ's conflicting.

If more RAM would help would it be SDRAM, it has 168-pins. If i put in 128mb PC100 SDRAM would that work.

Thanks for any advice.

 

[swwelsh]

On a board of that vintage, the sdram slots will probably only recognize a 32 or 16meg memory chip, if you are lucky it may be able to take a 64. You also dont want to mix edo 72pin chips with sdram, they probably wont work together. The problems you are having could be caused by flaky memory, corrupt software, or a bad modem driver. Do you still get crashes if you run Outlook Express or other net apps? I would look for an updated driver for the modem, scan the hard drive for errors, run the system file checker (start/run/sfc), and run a virus scan. 32 megs is not a lot of memory for SE, but I wouldnt think it would cause a freeze. You could try running Opera as a browser, it uses considerably less memory than IE

 

[Pernod]

Thanks swwelsh for your reply.

He has had this problem since he got the PC about a month ago. Otherwise everything runs fine. It was a clean install of Windows at that time.

At the moment it has 2 strips of what i presume is SDRAM because of the 168 pins so they must be 16mb each.
I put Norton's AV on it for him before he started on the Internet so i don't think a virus is the problem, but you never know.

Also i think this problem is intermittent as he put AOL on as his ISP but then didn't like it, so he asked me to uninstall it and register him with a different ISP, which i did on the Internet and had no problem while registering him which took a while and i also had more than one explorer window open.

Thanks again.

 

[Pernod]

Hi everyone,

I have found a 16mb SDRam and put it in, he can now surf the Internet for 30 - 45 minutes before it freezes (sometimes). But it is still not the end of the problem. He uses MSN messenger and the PC freezes almost straight away on this. As i have never used this does anyone know if it uses extra resources. He also has put Network Neighbourhood on the PC (the icon is on the desktop) I thought this was only needed if on a network? or does he need it for MSN messenger. It is a standalone computer.
He is going on holiday this week and i said i would give it an overhaul but don't really know where to start.

Can anyone identify the Mobo please:

The pull out tag at the front says:

X453/166-32-2.00GB which refers to P166, 32mb Ram (now 48mb) and 2GB HD.
Product F447402E31E3
Serial 77062UD

On the Motherboard:
Fujitsu A9930194G
HW REV 2.3
FW REV 5.6

Thanks in advance for any help or advice.

 

[swwelsh]

It's a Fujitsu Ergopro X453, but I was unable to find any information at Fujitsu or elsewhere on the system, it is probably too old. Its a basic VXPro chipset, I believe. 98SE will put network neighborhood on any machine that has a network adapter and client for microsoft networks and/or Netbuie protocol installed, it considers a modem a network adapter. I would run a surface scan on the hard drive, run SFC, maybe look for a newer modem driver. You might also rearrange the memory chips, could be there is a flaky one that is causing the freeze ups when a certain part of it is accessed. You might also go into Network in Control Panel and remove all unused protocols, if he just surfs the net all you need it tcp/ip, you can safely nuke Ipx/spx and Netbuie, and also change to Windows logon to get rid of the logon prompt

 

[anglin_fool]

If the problem is intermitant, my thoughts on it is a setting in the software that handles the memory. Check to see if the Virtual Memory is set to "Let Windows handle my Virtual Memory settings" radio button. IMHO

 

[4 Computer Fix]

Try this:

Hold down the Windows button (between Ctrl and Alt) and hit the Pause Break button. This should bring up System Properties box. If that doesn't open it then right click on the My Computer icon and click on Properties.

Then click on Performance and see what the system resources are. If anything under 60% then this might be the problem of locking up.

Lemme know what the resources are and we'll see how to get them down.

Hope this helps.