Your help is much appreciated and its my first time here.
I am currently running Windows ME, but I had the same problem on 98.
Basically, if my computer is left idle, for a few minutes it freezes. The screen stays as it is and I am unable to click on any icons. The mouse pointer will move with the mouse but it just seems to make a whirring sound. The only way I can restart the machine is to switch off and restart. i dont think the problem is with millenium, because I had exactly the same problem with windows 98. The system is a AMD athlon 1.2 Ghz, 128 DDR ram, FIC motherboard. A 2.5 gig and a second 600 meg hard drive, soundblaster 128, voodoo3 / 3000.
On some occasions I have had a blue screen pop up, during boot up saying that my C (my 2.5 gig) hard drive is not accessible. Recently, it also makes a whirring sound. However, I have defragmented it and also a through scan disk does not report anything wrong with the harddrive.
I also have a sound card on my motherboard, but that has been disabled.
All my power management, screen savers are switched off.
Ok.. lets do a couple things.... but first off have you ran an updated virus scan in the last day or so? If not you need to do that.
It sounds like you have to many items in startup as well....So,
Go to start/run type in msinfo32 then the ok.....click the (+) plus sign in front of software programs and then highlight startup group ...... click "edit" & then click "select all" then "edit" again and & them click "copy". Come back here and paste the copy so we can advise on which should be removed.
After you've done that you need to go to http://www.lavasoftusa.com & download ad-aware & scan for spyware.
Right-click an open space on yer desktop; Point to properties; Click the screen saver tab; Click the lower Settings button; Use the drop-down arrow to choose Never by Standby or Sleep-mode, 15 minutes below Monitor, 30 minutes by hard drive; Click Apply; Click Ok.
This one troubleshooting step. Savvy's suggestion is a good one. The below just expands on it:
First clean out your Startup folder - Start; Programs; Startup. Right click each item in turn there and choose delete. I have only 'swtray' there, the joystick driver, and it has to be there. On most machines you don't want anything in that folder.
Check your available resources by right-clicking My Computer; clicking Properties; Click the Performance tab. Resources available are displayed as percent there at top. Check it when you get done running the System Configuration Utility mentioned below.
Clicking Start; Run; typing 'msconfig', without the quoatation marks, in the Run box and clicking OK; Then clicking the Startup tab; Uncheck anything you don't need running in the background. For reference on what's not needed running in the background in the System Configuration Utility, view this website first and print out the list:
Get free Zone Alarm personal firewall anti-hacker countermeasure from http://www.zonelabs.com. (not the demo) Don't let anything out to the Internet you don't know what it is.
Update your antivirus, temporarily disable your screen saver and scan with your anti-virus set to scan All Files. Update and scan bi-monthly. Create your anti-virus' Rescue disk(s) and update them after each Windows anti-virus update.
yep, lavasoft is not working. i'll try the 'de' one. thanks.
I have just run msconfig
I disabled 'scan registry' and also 'Ensoniq Mixer.' So basically I tried to start the machine using the following:-
sytem tray,
tweak ui,
tweak ui (for network logon I think) and my PC used to freeze before I installed tweakui.
Strange thing is that even though I disabled 'EnsoniqMixer' it becomes activated again at startup. I tried to disable it twice and it keeps coming back on.
type msinfo32 in run & click ok... click the (+) plus at Software Envirements then click startup... let it load & go to edit & select all
then back to edit & copy... then paste that here
Sorry it doesn't look right what you already posted for that... I want to see it all
Started file scan
==================
Doubleclick file:C:\WINDOWS\Cookies\anyuser@doubleclick[1].txt
Doubleclick file:C:\WINDOWS\Cookies\m@doubleclick[1].txt
Other file:C:\WINDOWS\Cookies\m@admonitor[1].txt
Other file:C:\WINDOWS\Cookies\anyuser@sexlist[2].txt
Other file:C:\WINDOWS\Cookies\m@sexlist[2].txt
Other file:C:\WINDOWS\Cookies\anyuser@sextracker[2].txt
Other file:C:\WINDOWS\Cookies\anyuser@counter6.sextracker[1].txt
Other file:C:\WINDOWS\Cookies\anyuser@counter14.sextracker[2].txt
Other file:C:\WINDOWS\Cookies\m@counter3.sextracker[1].txt
Other file:C:\WINDOWS\Cookies\m@sextracker[1].txt
Other file:C:\WINDOWS\Cookies\m@counter14.sextracker[2].txt
Other file:C:\WINDOWS\Cookies\m@counter13.sextracker[1].txt
Other file:C:\WINDOWS\Cookies\m@counter11.sextracker[1].txt
Other file:C:\WINDOWS\Cookies\m@counter2.sextracker[1].txt
Other file:C:\WINDOWS\Cookies\m@counter6.sextracker[2].txt
Other file:C:\WINDOWS\Cookies\m@valueclick[1].txt
your startup looks fine to me. However, I see no signs of a virus scanner or a firewall so ...for a free virus scanner you can add to your system... go get AVG. Click here to download AVG its free
and to protect yourself from hackers etc... Get Zone Alarm
Click here the free version is fine
there is also another program where you can test your system online & the results are detailed with tips of how to fix performance problems. I have used it several times. http://www.pcpitstop.com make sure you check the details after you do the test
oops... sorry I mean delete the spyware when Ad-Aware finds it.
No.... adding those will not stop it from freezing that was not in reference to the problem... it was advice to keep you from having even more problems
Hi Moghm,I see you removed Scan Registry from msconfig.You need that,so go back and put a check mark next to it.Click apply,then ok and reboot.You can remove tweaku if you want,you dont need it at startup.Try this,go to the desktop,right click on My Computer,click properties,at the bottom of the page,click Graphics,make sure the hardware acceleration slider is all the way over to the right(full).Should it be already over,try moving it back one notch.See if that helps.
After following these instructions, unfortunately my windows ME is still freezing:-
I have:-
Scanned my harddisks: no viruses found
Edited MSconfig: only systray and scan registry are activated at startup
Went to pitstop.com: nothing major was reported
All power managment options are disabled.
Ad-aware: to clear spyware
I have increased my ram from 128 to 256 now.
I did notice that usually my system will freeze just at start up. This happens if I switch my PC on and leave it for about five minutes, come back and it has frozen. If I dont leave it inactive, the PC seems to work OK.
The other day I was playing some MP3 files. My pc will sometimes freeze while MP3 files are being played. Strangely enough, this was when my phone rang. Could the phone ring be sending some type of impulse to the modem, causing the system to freeze.
All my saving mangament is disabled.
I went to PCpitstop.com and carried out a complete scan of my system. The main thing that was reported was the access speed to and from my c:\ drive. My system is fast, its a 1.2 ghz AMD athlon, FIC motherboard, 256 DDR ram. The hard drive is from my old PC and is a 2.5 gig Fujitsu. Could this access be a problem ? Is there anyway I can find this out.
It's somewhat normal for WinME to freeze several times a day, a feature some people learn to live with. 2k/XP is much more stable, but XP would almost not fit on your 2.5GB drive...
You may also want to try disabling it in the BIOS. Usually when this is done, windows shutdown halts on the "it is now safe to turn off.." screen and you have to manually power off. But it is a valid shutdown and scandisk should not run on startup.
Another option is to disaple ACPI (another power managemnt option) in the BIOS. While you're there look for a "Wake on LAN" feature of some motherboards which enables the computer to be turned on by a phone ring. It's possible this is enabled and causing a freeze when you get a ring.
I am now 99% sure that my computer freezes when an incoming call is received. I carried out some tests, and when the I rang my line and the computer was switched on, the computer froze. I did disable the 'wake on call' feature for my motherboard in bios, but this still does not seem to work i.e. an incoming call will still freeze the comp.
I suppose the easiest way to solve the problem would be to disconnect my line to my modem, but I don't really want to do this.
Could the drivers for my modem be at fault here ?
Is there anyway I can disable this feature ?
Thanks
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