comp freezes and extremely slow start-ups

[a|acr|ty]

Hi,

I've been having problems with my comp for a while, but it's only recently that the problems have been really bugging me.

Here're the stats:
P3 800MHz
a 618AF motherboard (i have no idea if this is the name)
256 ram (haven't found out the brand as yet)
40GB hard drive, partitioned into 3
C: for OS (win98) 1 GB
D: for programs 15GB
E: for other stuff 24GB
52X cd-rom
16/10/40 yamaha cd-rw
LS-120 floppy
one normal floppy
a geforce2 mx video card
soundblaster live! value
a Realtek ethernet NIC for adsl 'net connection

Random Freezes:
Usually happens while playing games, like yuri's revenge and championship manager 01-02. When I use the computer for general net surfing, nothing happens. But when i try to play any games it's basically sure to freeze. The computer screen freezes and there would be a short section of sound that would keep replaying itself. Nothing except the reset button works.

Slow startup:
Basically it just takes forever to load to windows. Say, 5 mins? I doubt that's anywhere near normal.

Any thoughts?

[theENiGMA]

Hi!
Well, for the starup problem, the first thing I would do is get a registry cleaner. Prolly the safest and easiest to use is called EasyCleaner. This will clean all of the bum entires out of your registry. This should decrease your startup time. Also, make sure you aren't running any unnecissary progs at startup. If you are, get rid of them.

The random crashes is another, much more complex problem. The problem could be hardware (flaky RAM, etc.), or software (driver updates). From the software end, make sure you are running the latest drivers for your video and sould cards. Make sure there isn't a BIOS flash for your motherboard. If you are running a VIA chipset, make sure you have the latest 4-in-1 drivers. Hardware is trickier. If you have any extra parts available try swapping out the RAM.

Unfortuantely, problems like the ones you are describing are very hard to troubleshoot. Most of the people in this forum will attest to experiencing some problem that would not go away. Don't lose patience, and you should be able to solve it.
-KEiTH

[Terrorbyte]

In the perfect world we would all have two computers, one set aside strictly for games, I am lucky enough to be in that situation.
But in general terms, games will cause more problems than any other application or program.
I am not familiar with the game you mentioned but you could try and make sure that all your video card drivers are the latest available, and check if any special patches are required to help the game, generally it seems like a memory based problem, but could also be heat related, swapping or changing ram is fairly cost effective and can't hurt.

Yeah, 5 min to load is definitely not normal, I think my xp on xp does it in 23 seconds, what is the anti-virus setup to do, it may be running a full scan at startup by default ? that takes about 5 mins, or the memory related problem could be giving the system a hard time at startup.
Definitely a tricky one, what o/s ? and what are your system resources after it is running ?
You may find a diagnostic program from CNET.com that will go inside and find something wrong. SiSoft Sandra might do it for you, but there are many others.
Good Luck.

[Leef]

type msconfig in the run box and click statup. Uncheck anything you don't want. All I have checked are systray.exe and icq net detect. That should speed up things quite a bit on startup

As for the freezes...like theENIGMA said..they're hard to troubleshoot. I used to have the same problem whith my old MB. Replacing it helped .

Could be that, or bad RAM, bad graphics card, bad drivers...lots of different things.

If you want the name of the MB and RAM, go to Sisoft's website and get Sandra Utilities. They have a free version and it'll tell you prety much anything about your system you need to know

[a|acr|ty]

Hi

Downloaded SiSoft Sandra, got some more info.

MB:
Manufacturer : Jetway
Model : V.618AF/6618AS A02 11-20-2000
Chipset : Intel 815 (Solano) Chipset

Still unable to find the ram brand though.

So far, i suspect the freeze problem is in the hardware, since i just reinstalled win98 and there was no change. I'd try to get some ram to check if that's the problem in the next few days.

Also, is it possible that the culprit be a bad hdd?

About the long startups..
Coudn't find the EasyCleaner prog, tried the registry cleaner from ms (i think that was a bad move). Startups are still about 5 mins. It waits at the DOS screen for this amount of time before getting into the windows screen. During this time the hdd seems to be rather idle, so I'm wondering what could be making it 'wait' so long.

[a|acr|ty]

btw the my antivirus was not set to do a full scan on startup, so it's not the culprit.

[mike breck]

Post your IRQs and let's have a look at them.

[a|acr|ty]

I doubt the IRQ settings are the problem (i remember reading somewhere that most serious IRQ problems would have stopped the computer from starting up), but here they are:

0 : System timer
1 : Keyboard
2 : Programmable interupt controller
3 : Communications Port(COM2)
4 : Communications Port(COM1)
5 : IRQ Holder for PCI Steering
6 : Standard Floppy Disk Controller
7 : Printer Port(LPT1)
8 : System CMOS/real time clock
9 : Creative SB16 Emulation
10 : IRQ Holder for PCI Steering
10 : IRQ Holder for PCI Steering --> Yes it appears twice
10 : Realtek RTL8029(AS) PCI Ethernet NIC
11 : Creative SB Live! Value
11 : IRQ Holder for PCI Steering
11 : IRQ Holder for PCI Steering --> yet again
11 : Standard Universal PCI to USB Host Controller
11 : Standard Universal PCI to USB Host Controller --> and again
12 : PS/2 Compatible Mouse Port
13 : Numeric data processor
14 : Primary IDE controller (single fifo)
14 : Standard Dual PCI IDE controller
15 : Standard IDE/ESDI Hard Disk Controller

[Cricket]

Hi a|acr|ty,

From looking at the IRQ assignments, the Creative SB16 Emulation is on IRQ 9 and the Creative SB Live! Value is on IRQ 11 sharing with the USB HOST CONTROLLER. Ideally, the Creative SB Live! Value is happier on IRQ 5 or 9 and the Creative SB16 Emulation as either sharing with IRQ 7 (the LPT port) or disabled. The Creative SB16 Emulation is only used for DOS apps or games. You can make the Creative SB16 Emulation share IRQ 7 through Device Manager> Creative SB16 Emulation Properties...might allow the Creative SB Live! Value to move to another IRQ (9?).

You might also want to disable COM1 and COM2 to free up 2 IRQ's if you aren't using them. Those are for the Serial ports on the back of your PC.

Cricket

[Jade]

Disable SB emaluation

Goto add remove programs and double click on SB live. A window should pop up with various things to uninstall from Sb live choices. keep the things you need but click on Dos Drivers to remove them.

This, if it does come up as is, will greatly improve your start up time.

Oh yes and do as said above and disable comm ports in the bios. Printer port as well if you don't have one.

[a|acr|ty]

Disabled SB16 Emulation, plus the two COM ports. Startup time has been reduced somewhat, now it's about 2 minutes (still somewhat long, but way more bearable). Just a question, why would the SB16 Emulation cause startups to be longer?

btw, thanks
still gotta thaw out my comp's darned frezzing habits though.

[Cricket]

Hi again,

PC's that have a NIC installed will normally take longer to boot up and at 2 minutes it sounds closer to what you should be experiencing. I think you can get it down a little more though.

As for disabling SB16 Emulation, what might be happening is your IRQ assignments are better now (no sharing, no conflicts) so your system isn't wasting time looking for devices and being confused by finding 2 devices on 1 IRQ.

Did you check your IRQ assignments again to make sure none of the devices is sharing anymmore?

Another thing you may want to do is start your PC in Windows Safe Mode and then go into Device Manager and check if there are any duplicate entries for any of your devices. If you find any, remove all but the last entry and reboot your PC. You may see your boot time go down a little more without the "ghost" entries confusing Windows.

Cricket