System "blinks" in Netscape Mail

[Computer Hobbyist]

I have a problem that is becoming very annoying. I don't know if its hardware or software, but since I can repeat it when I open the same software package (netscape 6.1 mail) I suspect it involves a software call. I am running RH 6.0 on a VA-503+ with an AMD K-6/2 500 MHZ processor. I have 128 meg of Ram. The system has worked fine since I put it together several weeks ago.

Here's the problem, when I open Netscape 6.1 mail package I get a beep followed a couple of seconds later by a second higher pitched beep, the screen goes black and most of the time if I wait for a few seconds it comes back on. Sometime it doesn't and I have to powerdown and restart. I suspect a memory problem of some sort, but am not sure. I know the mail package is making some kind of call that is incompatable with the hardware. The problem has occured in other situations, but only once. It is absolutely repeatable if I go into the Netscape mail package.

I posted here because I am running Linux and the problem appears to be software related. By the way, the bios supports some sort of turbo speed feature for dos games (quaint).

Help

[Statica]

Hi CH:
Am not aware of such issues with Netscape, my system specs on one such machine are a bit worse off than yours actually (P-150 w/256MB), but that could be par for the course to Netscape. Have you tried it with Mozilla?

BTW might be worth your while to get on top of things with running a monitor/logging something like gsysinfo or top, and checking out your kernel/memory/swap usage and see if it gets better/worse with any adjustments to that.

[Computer Hobbyist]

Statica

I Spent some time last evening exploring the www.Mozilla.org site. Really, really interesting! I am downloading Mozilla today and will install tonight.

I will also install one of the monitoring programs.

Hey, this Linux stuff is downright fun. Plenty of opportunity for the tinkerer. Of course, if I keep it up I'll undoubtly screw things up to the point I'll have to reinstall. (I already want to change my partitions, but am waiting for my copy of Mandrake 8.1 to show up to do anything really radical.)

Glad I am not using the machine for anything other than learning Linux.

CH

[Computer Hobbyist]

Statica

Well, the problem doesn't appear when I use Mozilla mail. I'll keep testing the software, but I may have found an obscure Netscape 6.1 bug. Easy solution. Dump Netscape. It is neat that Mozilla has picked up all of my netscape mail and my netscape address book. So far so good.

CH