Dell PIII having problems in Win98

AGodspeed

Diamond Member
Jul 26, 2001
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My parents have a 450 MHz Dell PIII. It has Win98 preinstalled on it. This computer is about 2 and a half years old.

The problem is sometimes the start menu button turns black, or it turns multicolored. And sometimes when I cold boot, it freezes, only displaying a black screen.

What's wrong. Should I install Win 98 SE. What's the dillio.
 

Electrode

Diamond Member
May 4, 2001
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I had the start button problem too, in both Win98 and Win98SE. I never figured out what the problem was, but it never seemed to affect anything.

As for the black screen, it sounds like one of the many symptoms of severe OS rot. All I can recommend is that you reformat and install a regular copy of win9x. (ie. not the repair disk that came with the computer)

Hope that helps. In the future, do not buy computers from big OEMs. :)
 

AGodspeed

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Jul 26, 2001
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it sounds like one of the many symptoms of severe OS rot.

You read my mind. My parents don't know a thing about computers, and have probably abused it to death for years now.

I'll try what you said. Thanks.
 

KGB

Diamond Member
May 11, 2000
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I would recommend running SFC before formatting.

Are you sure you want to take all that time to get it back to where they had it?