Strange Win98 Problems...

[Vortex22]

System specs:
PIII 700e
ASUS CUSL2
Ati Radeon 64mb
Maxtor 10 and 13.6 gig (OS is on 10)
128 mb PC100
Soundblaster Live X-Gamer
Crappy 40x cd
Tdk 12x10x32 burner
Some generic network card for cable modem

My problem(s):
I'll start off with the boot up, I know there may be multiple things causing some of the things im going to say... Once in a while during post, it brings me into the bios and tells me that the cpu speed was incorrectly set, very simple to fix but annoying (no i'm not overclocking). During Windows bootup sometimes, for no apparent reason it runs the registry checker and restores the registry (ick). This happens sometimes in Windows right after bootup (gives me message telling me to reboot because there may be problems in registry.) If I do get it up and working, sometimes all the text on the screen (web pages, text in windows, icon text etc.) get all distorted and totally unreadable after a while (10 min - 2 hours). This is usually followed by an error message that I can't read, but it reboots when you click it. The error message does not always occur. After rebooting the registry checker runs about 70% of the time, and sometimes keeps rebooting and running again and again until I manually power off. I also got a disk scan for bad sectors once yesterday.
I did nothing that should have messed anything up like this. Didn't install anything, nothing. It just started one day.
Someone please help this is extremely annoying! I would like to be able to fix this wothout reinstalling Windows beacuse I don't really know how (well, haven't done it before) and don't want to screw everything up totally...
Thanks in advance...

 

[Spanker]

Do you have another video card to test? Some (mind you) of your problems match some I've had with a bad card or sharing IRQ on vid card. Youre not OC the vid right? and youve got the latest drivers? Thats where I would start. You can re-install windows over your existing setup and it will find apps & hardware but I dont think you need to go that far plus I doubt it will fix it.
Try to configure the card with a different (open) IRQ.

 

[Panther505]

Vortex22

Can you list the PCI slots that you have your cards in?? For reference assume that the slot closest to the AGP slot is slot 1. Then repost your hardware with the corresponding slots next to it... That may help to trouble shoot the issue....

 

[damien6]

At first, I would've pointed toward the video card as the culprit but if you're getting those registry errors then I say look into either your Rams or the CPU. Personally, I would say the CPU is causing the problem, most likely heat related or wrong voltage setting.

 

[Spuffin]

Maybe you were sold a chip that is slower than stated and you *ARE* overclocking it... just a thought

 

[Panther505]

Spuffin has a point. After some thought I realized that I have not ever had an IRQ problem cause registry corruption. If you are running multiple ram sticks pull one and try the system running that way. If there is no improvement then switch the ram and try again. IF both instances continue to do the same thing then I would suggest the CPU and try a different CPU. Also check to see what the Voltage that the MB is using on the CPU - for the 700E it should be 1.65 not 2.0 or 1.85

Best of Luck

 

[WhiteMouse]

It's hard to remark PIII, right? I bet the problem is the bad RAM.

 

[Vortex22]

Ok, thanks for the replies.
It's a PIII 700e, I got it in the sealed retail box so I'm pretty sure it is 700.
I might have another vid card laying around... I think I still have my nasty Rage Fury
The voltage is 1.65, neither processor or vidcard overclocked.
Only have 1 stick of 128mb of ram in the 1st slot. (It's generic but I've never had problems with it and the mobo detects it (and it runs fine) at cas2.

AGP slot - Radeon
1- Empty
2- Network Card
3- SB Live
4- Empty
5- Empty

 

[Vortex22]

Sounds like ram may be the culprit then? I was planning on getting a 256mb stick of Mushkin rev2 anyways.

 

[Panther505]

Another thing to try- move the sb card or the ethernet card into another slot. Slots next to each other generally share IRQs (ie AGP and slot 1,2&3, 4&5)

if not then the next thing is the RAM..

I don't think that the CPU was remarked but if it continues then get a hold of INTEL and let then exchange it