System keeps locking.. Operating system?

[Salvador]

Hi.

A friend of mine has a computer that keeps locking up on him. I believe that he's running Windows 98SE. This would be a operating system problem, wouldn't it? Would there be any hardware in the system that would be responsible for locking his system? Power supply? motherboard?

Where should I have him start troubleshooting this problem?

TIA,

Sal

 

[oog]

is there anything in the event log?

 

[spoondigity]

You will probably need to supply more information on it. What is going on with the system when it locks up? Is it during the start, or perhaps only in 3d games....things like that. A short list of what hardware the system has would help out those trying to troubleshoot as well. Depending on when/where it locks up you may end up starting to troubleshoot in different areas.

 

[Salvador]

I guess it just locks up doing just about anything. My friend says that it's locking up more frequent these days. He'll just go to use it for a few minutes and it will lock, then he'll have to reboot and run scandisk. He also said that if he leaves the pc unattended for a few minutes and comes back, it's usually locked. I don't know if he gets any kind of error message. I think it just freezes on him and then he has to reboot it to get it going again.

It seems like the operating system to me, but I don't know much about troubleshooting problems.

If you need any other specific information, let me know.

Thanks!

Sal

 

[optimistic]

Sounds like the hard drive to me. Scandisk is not producing any errors?

 

[wetcat007]

Well Windows 98 corruption could be a cause, so could hard disk problems, so could memory problems, so could power supply problems, so could CPU problems, so could motherboard problems, so could video card problems. Define lock up, is it where nothing at all moves? or do u get blue screen of death a bunch of times.

My first guess is the OS though if you want to know, it needs to be reinstalled, preferably with a newer OS.

 

[Salvador]

Well Windows 98 corruption could be a cause, so could hard disk problems, so could memory problems, so could power supply problems, so could CPU problems, so could motherboard problems, so could video card problems. Define lock up, is it where nothing at all moves? or do u get blue screen of death a bunch of times.

I'll get more specifics and get back to you. Thanks! It just seems like a OS problem to me. What do I know though?

Sal

 

[Salvador]

Is there a utility that will help me diagnose some problems? I want a way to check the RAM, hard disk and anything else I can test to see if it's ok. Will something like SiSoft Sandra do this?

Thanks again.

Sal

 

[MournSanity]

Could be a temperature thing due to the summer heat. My computer freezes like all holy hell on me sometimes and all I could do is restart the damned thing. Pisses me off, but I don't care because I'm going to upgrade anyway. And I am hoping it will pass after summer does. I dunno. Why am i even typing this? I suck at computers.

 

[Salvador]

Could be a temperature thing due to the summer heat. My computer freezes like all holy hell on me sometimes and all I could do is restart the damned thing. Pisses me off, but I don't care because I'm going to upgrade anyway. And I am hoping it will pass after summer does. I dunno. Why am i even typing this? I suck at computers.

That's very funny because this person lives in Lake Havasu City, AZ. He said that his temps finally got down in the 100's recently after being in the 110's. I wonder how his A/C is working.

Sal

 

[Salvador]

Ok.. Here is what my friend wrote about the system problem.

Two things happen although not necessarily in squence, almost every secession I will get the message that my computer has preformed and illegal operation and will close down . I can look for further information about it and it will list some kernel # that makes no sense to me. Once in a while it does shut down and then reboots it's self like and ALT/CONT/DEL (or soft boot) reboot, however until recently I have just ignored it and continued to go ahead with what ever it was I was doing. Lately it has locks up quite often when I try to access E -Mail or some attach files. It stops responding to the mouse or keyboard and forces me to turn the main power switch off, then because it was not properly shut down it runs scan disk before it will reboot. I have no problem running scan disk and defrag but it doesn't seem to change anything.
Ever since I installed a bunch of MSN's up dates a month ago, I have noticed a large number of streamer adds inundating my system. There is now also and additional tool bar when ever I'm on line that is indicative to what ever I'm online with. For example right now it has five boxes (Back to School)(Backgrounds)(eCards))(Funny)(More) If I'm online with my online broker (Scottrade) then it list other brokerages in addition to constantly flagging my screen with drop down streamers from other brokers. Some times they get three deep before I can get rid of them and some times it will lock up while I'm trying to exit them.
I think my zone alarm fire wall was going nuts trying to clear all this junk before letting it in.
I have just uninstalled Zone alarm as well as removed a number of programs from my start up menu including one called "eDonkey" which I just installed. This is a napster type program that cost me $17 on line and would allow me to down load almost any program you can think of for free. It couldn't get around Zone alarm so I wasn't able to try it out. As soon as I downloaded it I was informed that it was a share ware program and that if I didn't want to be bombarded with streamers then I should register and pay a fee, which I have not done yet. However I have noticed an increase in streamers.
It's got to the point that I'm afraid to open up any adds online for fear of the junk they are going to throw back at me.
One thing Zone Alarm made me aware of was the increase in programs asking permission to go on line as my server. Every time my system booted it would parade a line of programs in front of me that were trying to access the net. If I didn't give some of them permission then I noticed a drop in the streamers but also more lock ups.
I think I need to get rid of all of the cookie trails and figure out how to stop programs that I don't even know where they came from, from going on line and bringing in more junk.
I see some software that claims it can remove the cookies and cover your tracks so others can't track your online activities.
Did you tell me that you were using something like that?

Can you tell anything from this?

Thanks again.

Sal

 

[Cuular]

Sounds like he needs to become friends with Norton/Symantec, Adaware, SpyBot search and destroy, and Hijack this, to clean up all the crap that has taken over his computer.

And then practice safe surfing habits.