Lockup in Windows Explorer - Weird

[dummy2001]

I'm running win98se on an ECS K7S5A mobo, 950mhz Tbird, 128 mb 2100 DDR ram etc.

I know the K7S5A is known for an overheating SIS chipset -> lockup issues but this only seems to happen when I try to open certain directories in win explorer, I freeze up and have to hard restart. The weird thing is that after restarting I can open other folders, but trying to open the problem one will cause the freeze again one or two more times. Eventually it will resolve itself and and I can open it without trouble, but in some cases the same folder has trouble again later. I deleted the half-life folder that was the persistent problem, but this has shown up for other directories as well.

Does this sound like a heat issue or a windows problem? Motherboard Monitor shows CPU at 44c, system at 28c, which is not unusual for me.

 

[cholley]

it sounds like heat instability, see if you can get some fans in there to keep the chipset and agp bus cool

 

[dummy2001]

I will do the chipset fix eventually to replace the shoddy thermal goo ECS uses, not using an agp card right now.

But, if it is heat, why do opening certain folders cause lockups again and again while others have no effect? Is the heat produced by exploring a bigger directory enough to tip the chipset over the edge? That seems really bizarre to me.

 

[dummy2001]

Ok well its not heat, after sitting cold all night I started the machine up today and started messing with explorer and immediately got lockups. Could this be a corrupted winexplorer or a virus?

If I were to delete Windows Explorer is this one of those things that a new one would be generated, or would I be looking at a hosed OS? (I tried system file checker and scandisk but they don't find anything wrong). Any other suggestions besides reinstalling windows?