Hung up on Windows 98 Hang Ups

[Dalton]

Hi again folks, a busy day for computer problems:

My Win98 computer has just started almost continually freezing today, half the time it doesn't boot up, half the time it boots up all the way in either safe mode or normal mode, but then freezes almost as soon as I try to run something.

I'm also getting blue screens with "OD" and "OE" fatal exceptions...

Safe mode is a diagnostic mode, I know, but what kind of diagnosis specifically am I supposed to run in safe mode?

Many thanks.

Peter

[glc]

0D and 0E exceptions are usually faulty ram.

www.memtest86.org

Download this package - http://www.memtest.org/download/1.26....26.floppy.zip - it will make a bootdisk.

[Dalton]

Thanks for the message.

I ran as much of this memory test as I could (computer freezes before the end of it). It showed over 2 million "errors" before the end of it...but when I take the RAM out one by one and test them, it still freezes on every one of three RAM modules.

Any further thoughts or ideas? Peter

[glc]

Either all your ram is defective, your motherboard is defective, or your power supply is not putting out clean power.

Time for some system details, please.

[Mesaeus]

Are you running the ram at relaxed settings or at turbo ? Go into the bios, and just about any ram setting you find, take the highest value. For example : CAS 2.5 instead of 2, Tras 6 instead of 5 etc. (your values may differ, just get the highest one). The chance that all three modules are faulty is very small. Did you overclock your system in any way ? Can you give us more details about which motherboard you're using, which cpu, which memory etc..

[Dalton]

Thanks again. Not sure how to go into Bios? but system details are as follows:

Tiger Pro Pentium III 550, total 190 meg RAM (three RAM cards, 64, 64, 32), running Windows 98SE, Free version Grisoft AVS, the Motherboard is original but not sure what it is.

The problem I'm having is that the freezes are occurring so frequently that I really can't get a diagnostic program to run. Usually freezes within one or two windows, I did run Standard ScanDisc and it claimed to have repaired some problems, Thorough Scan Disc always freezes before completion, same with the memory test you recommended. It does go into Safe Mode as well as normal mode but freezes occur just as frequently there.

Maybe it's time to dump the machine and buy a new one? Sounds like the perfect excuse, but it would still be nice to turn the old one into a jukebox at least.

Peter

[Mesaeus]

To get in the bios, most mb's require a certain key to get pressed in the seconds before a boot really starts (before the short beep that indicates the boot has started). Try pressing del, F2, F10 repeatedly. Most mb's these days use del. It can be the monitor isn't showing anything yet when you have to press that key, so just restart and start pressing del until you get in the bio setup. Now tell us, do you see any of these names : Phoenix, Award, AMI ? Those are the main three manufacturers of bios setup programs, and it would be handy to know which is used on your mb.

But to me it's starting more and more to sound like either all memory is bad, or the mb itself is bad. Can you borrow a dimm of SDRAM from someone ? If that one works, your memory is bad, if it also doesn't work, it's your mb. Or maybe the psu but that seems less likely to me.

[glc]

If "Tiger Pro" is a computer built by Tiger Direct, it's very possible the motherboard, ram, and/or the power supply is bad - they have a habit of peddling a lot of PC Chips motherboards, generic ram, and Deer power supplies.

[galaxian]

And stop running scandisks, especially with autofix on, until you resolve this. If it is really ram related, scandisk could be detecting false errors, BUT is still trying (keyword) to fix them, which will/can result in disk corruption.

[Dalton]

Thanks to everyone for the input.

I've stopped running Scandisk and got BIOS up (it's Award Software Inc.)

Yes, between 2000 when I bought the machine and now, I have found that Tiger isn't the kind of outfit I want to do any more business with. But actually the RAM and Motherboard have been working okay on this computer ever since I bought it, it all went daffy only yesterday.

Peter

[GaryRouth]

If you have a helpful friend who has an extra PC (or just a lot of extra time!) ... you could try testing your memory modules one at a time with MemTest86+ while in his extra box. If it runs OK there, you'll know it's not just a module problem. If it gets the same errors there, it's likely the power supply or motherboard, like the PC Mech chorus has harmonized.

Pretty nice if your friend had an extra power supply to try too
. . . Gary