Computer Freezing

[Painter Mike]

I reinstalled Win 98SE onto a new (Master) HD with the same other software that works OK on the old drive. Reinstalled my Broadband connection from a new installation disk which automatically upgraded IE4 to IE6 as the minimum it required.

Two problems that may be related are that
1) The computer freezes totally, usually after 20 - 30 minutes. Ctrl-Alt-Del has no effect as the keyboard seems completely dead. Forced to use the shutdown button and reboot. This freezing has occured several times after a straight boot without opening any applications at all. I return to my desktop after grabbing a coffee and its frozen.

2) A similar problem when browsing only sometimes Ctrl=Alt-Del works. Guilty running programs seemed to be Avgcc & SmcService. Uninstalled & reinstalled both AVG & Sygate (to an earlier edition) and now AVG is the only one kicking up occasionally.

I admit to doing some fairly aggressive Registry cleaning using JV16 after having real problems with getting Photoshop to recognise my Scanners (still not resolved - See thread "Photoshop not recognising Scanner" posted yesterday). Seemed pointless going back to an older Registry backup because so many programs had been uninstalled and new ones put on - and this problem seems to have been around from day one.

When I switch to using my old drive asthe master (still with original OS & software configuration) this problem does not occur

Using an IBM P3 - 500mz, Win 98SE, IE6, 768Mb RAM, AVG (Latest free version), Sygate Firewall (SPF5.5b2525.exe older version which is most compatable with 98SE), new HD is a 160Gb Seagate with a Promise TX2 Ultra ATA100 x4 IDE controller.

Any ideas out there? Thanks > Mike

I have done all the usual Virus & Spyware searches using the above with Spybot & Ad-aware. Could find nothing,

[Painter Mike]

Addition to above info - Another habit of my IE/broadband connection is that, after a period of browsing, Pages stop downloading (Unable to Display message). A quick check on Outlook Express shows that I am not connecting to my provider. Reboot and everything is back to normal. I will post a new thread on this one but I mention it here because it may be related to the Freeze problem. Chow.

[Thudpucker]

Did you clean out your start menu?

[Painter Mike]

Yep - Did several uninstalls, registry cleans, and manual cleanups (including startup) of unneccesary applications and dross left over from spyware and antivirus software.

I have not at this stage uninstalled & reinstalled IE6 as I am unsure of this and not keen on backing up/tranferring all my favorites & messages or going through the lengthy manual setting up of my accounts (yet) but it looks like I will have to go through the whole format/partition/reinstall everything route anyway.

Chow

[glc]

Do you have the system.ini entry to limit your Vcache? Win98 does not like to run with over 512mb of ram unless you do.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q253912/

[Painter Mike]

Yes - when I had initial problems with the new 512Mb memory chip, the suppliers gave me the vcache settings (MinFileCache=51200 & MaxFileCache=56320) + MinSPs=16 in the 386Enc section. They also recommended changing the Virtual Memory settings. This seemed to work fine.

Now that (I think) I understand a little more I would have thought that MinFileCache should have been my total RAM, which is 512+256 (76800)? I haven't a clue what the Max should in this case.

Thanks for the comment but I don't think it is this as the machine does not freeze when booting from the old 40Gb HD.

I have decided anyway to Start again and do a comlete wipe, format, reinstall on the new drive. I do have a couple of queries on a new string -"Preparing 160Gb Hard Drive in Win 98SE" If you have any tips there I would appreciate it.

Chow > Mike