What's causing this computer to freeze?

[haut]

As some of you know, I'm building a new computer for college. Well, the one I'm using now has been acting up for some time. I'm leaving this one here for my parents to use when they convert my room to an office or something. They want me to fix it before I leave.
This computer freezes a lot. It's the type of freeze that you can't do anything with. The whole screen freezes in its place and it won't accept any commands (i.e. ctrl-alt-del). I've thought it was a problem with the video card since I have a Guillemot Maxi Gamer Phoenix and it had some problems with freezing with scrolling. I haven't tried a new card and don't want to spend the money yet until I know for sure. Also, could it be possibly the processor overheating? Its possible the fan is dying or dead, I'm not sure. It normally happens when I have a lot of things open and am switching between windows or right at startup.
Here's what I got:
K6-2/450
192MB RAM
Guillemot Maxi Gamer Phoenix 16MB AGP
IBM 15GB hard drive
Cheap Azza (I think) AT motherboard
Small AT case

TIA for the help you guys!
--Ryan

 

[haut]

^bump^

 

[Tweakin]

What OS are you using? Either way, look a the logs....Dr. Watson or debug in Win2k. This might lead you to a faulty driver. If the system is just sitting there and it locks up, you might have a memory leak or duplicate dll that's causing the problem. There was some freeware on Winmag's site from Karen Kentworthy hich searched the system for duplicate dll's and also searched the Registry for unnecessary and redundant keys. Both required VBrunn, but it was downloadable there also. I think it was called Reg Prunner and dup finder.

 

[haut]

Forgot to mention, I'm running Win98 SE. I have my GeForce2 Pro for my new system sitting in its box. Should I try it out and see if it still freezes? Will this damage my new card at all (if it freezes)? Thanks.
--Ryan

 

[bacillus]

those K6-2 cpus do run hot. have you checked that the heatsink isn't overpopulated with dust &/or the fan is working as this can cause the problem you're describing.
does your case have any ventilation/cooling?
it wouldn't hurt to post a full list of your irqs to see if there aren't any glaring conflicts.

 

[haut]

I just checked the IRQs and realized that the "Monster Sound II PCI Audio" and "Maxi Gamer Phoenix" are both on IRQ 11. Can they share? Could this be the problem? I don't have any exclamation points in my device manager. Thanks for the help!
--Ryan

 

[haut]

I can't change the interrupt request for either device! I tried uninstalling the sound card and reinstalling it but it went back to 11. Would it help if I physically moved it to a different PCI slot? Thanks.
--Ryan

 

[Duvie]

Yes, Try moving it to like slot 4 ro 5 pci...I had a 400 k62 and I kept it (same sound card) in one of the lower pci slots.

You may have a bios option that when checked will let you manually set irq's...Sounds as if the bios is automatically setting them for you.