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4 day old PIII 750 freezes up
My 4 day old fully loaded PIII 750 randomly freezes up in various stages of operation (i.e., connected to ISP, not connected to ISP, Outlook Express running, Internet Explorer loading a page, composing email, and even when I closed everything I had open and left it sitting for a couple of hours came home to it frozen). Not sure where to start looking and until I have a good hour to wait on the phone for support I figure I better start here. I have to press the reset button to reboot and it goes thru a scandisk. Cntrl-Alt-Del doesn't even work. You'd think if Dell burned it in the same would have happened to them.
Kay H
394 Posts
0
March 7th, 2000 00:00
Hi,
One thing you can do for yourself is to get your system in the best possible condition it can be, in order for you to do what you want with it.
One thing that happens with new systems is that the manufacturers all install software which is set to quicklaunch for you. There is a lot of this software, and it is costing you that part of your memory which is called resources. The first thing you should do is to clean your startup programs out of all the entries which you don't feel you need to quicklaunch for you from the taskbar. Everything will still be available for you to use in the normal manner, from Start | Programs, of course.
To do this, go to Start | Run | type msconfig in the field you see, then click the Startup tab. Make a list of all the files and programs associated with these checked boxes. Now, go to this website created by Denny Denham which can tell you what most, if not all, of the entries are, and whether it is safe to uncheck them, so that you can recover some resources. If you have entries which are not identified, post them here, and perhaps someone can recognize them and let you know what to do.
Next, you need to consider your screensaver and your power management scheme. In terms of the screensaver, if you're using one of the 3D screensavers, either choose a simpler one, or see if you can adjust the settings to be less complicated--sometimes the screensavers have this option included. Barring this, choose a non-3D screensaver or do without--they just aren't necessary for prevention of monitor screen burn-in any longer. You can get to your screensaver by going to My Computer | Control Panel | Display | Screensaver.
Next, while you are still in Control Panel, go to Power Management, and see to that these settings are optimal for your setup. If you are at home or an office, choose Home/Office Desk, for Power Schemes. Next, do use the power down settings for your monitor and your hard drive. Set these as desired for your needs. Finally, set Standby to Never, and do not use this feature--it is unreliable in desktop systems, and causes freezes of the sorts you have mentioned. If changes are made either to your screensaver settings or to power management settings, click the Apply button, then the OK button.
If you will do these things, then see how your system is behaving after a restart, we might be able to work with any further instability. This is just where you start troubleshooting freezes--yours sound resources/memory or standby related, so we have started there.
Good luck,
Kay
Suzy
10 Posts
0
March 7th, 2000 01:00
Kay H
394 Posts
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March 7th, 2000 02:00
Hi Suzy,
I'll say--you were ruthless :) Resources look great.
Your video card has enough memory that you can safely run your system at True Color, high resolution, and full acceleration, but cutting back to High Color or reducing the resolution and acceleration remain an option.
Next then, we try to isolate exactly what you are doing when the crashes happen: how much multitasking, are there any error messages with any of them, if you are running a constant background antivirus scan, even when not on the internet, try turning that off when you are not on the internet, to see if that is possibly interfering.
I have to leave for tonight, but I'll check back early tomorrow, OK?
Later,
Kay
Suzy
10 Posts
0
March 7th, 2000 02:00
Kay H
394 Posts
0
March 7th, 2000 02:00
Hi Suzy,
OK, the next thing to do is to check your resources free on bootup: restart the system, then right-click your My Computer icon, choose Properties, then performance. You should see System Resources, then a percentage. That's your resources free for use when you start your system. That tells you whether you have gone far enough with your startup files. Some people can get by with lesser resources free than others, and when you start having the freezes you are having, in the absence of an error message, you minimize what's running.
Next, what video card do you have, and how much video memory does it have? What version of DirectX are you running? You can find this by going to Start | Run | type dxdiag in the field, and click OK. This brings up a tool for DirectX; in the first screen (Help tab), look to the lower half of the frame where is says System Information: the version number will be included. I hesitate to get started testing your DirectX functionality yet, but this can be done by going to the Display tab and the Sound tab. Under the drivers tab, you can check to see if any conflicts are shown--look for colored circles with an exclamation point in them.
If you can see about these things and post back, we can narrow things down some, OK?
Later,
Kay
Suzy
10 Posts
0
March 7th, 2000 02:00
On a fresh boot I have 92% free. Sounds pretty good to me. :)
I have a 32mb NVIDIA GeForce graphics card. The DirectX is version 7.0 (4.07.00.0700). There are no conflicts under the drivers tab.
Steve Anderson
677 Posts
0
March 7th, 2000 06:00
Kay asked me to take a look at your problem for a second opinion. Getting a freeze with no error messages makes it harder to diagnose the problem but let's have a go at it.
The next time that you have a freeze and reboot the first thing I would like for you to do is run a Dr Watson. Do this:Start>Programs>Accessories>System tools>System Information>Tools>Dr Watson. You should see a new Icon in the System Tray (lower Right) you just double click on this and the good Dr will issue his report. Post this information for us to look at. You might want to put the Icon in the tray so that you will have it ready to go.
Something to do in the meanwhile. There were some issues with the Direct X 7.0 so lets go to the Windows update and install the update patch for it.If you haven't gone there before, do this:Start>Windows Update>Products updates,you will be ask to intall an update driver so click yes. the Microsoft system will scan you to see what you have installed and then show you a list of available updates. Scroll down the the Recommended Updates and there you will find a listing for Direct X 7.0a Upgrade, put check in box and click download. It will take you through automatically just answer the popups affirmatively.
Try this for awhile and if you get a freeze then do a Dr Watson and post the results.
Even though you found no driver conflicts in your video driver search it dosn't mean that there may not be one corrupted. To check this: Right click on the desktop>properties>Settings>advanced>Performance here slide the hardware acceleration bar back a notch>Appy>OK out. Check this setting out for awhile to see if it helps if it does slow down the freezes then go back and take it down another notch. See if that makes a bigger difference.
If the update of DirectX doesn't help then maybe we can get enough info from Dr Watson to help diagnose. The check for corupted video drives would eliminate that avenue or prove that is the problem.
I'm sure that Kay will be back on the board before I can because I'm tied up until after lunch. Trust me when I say that she is the most through diagnostician around.
Good Luck.
Steve
Kay H
394 Posts
0
March 7th, 2000 12:00
Hi Suzi,
Steve very kindly agreed to see what he thought of your situation, and I agree with his analysis as to where we are now, and as to what should be done next. I have talked to him since he posted, and he suggests (I agree) that it will not be harmful to upgrade your Microsoft Virtual Machine component, in case a Java error is causing this behavior. You can get this upgrade by clicking here; you will be taken to the Microsoft Java page, and can download there; they'll install it for you.
I realize that a lot has been asked of you here--it's part of the deal with owning a computer system to be able to troubleshoot and fix software problems on your own. If you will print Steve's post out so that you can refer to it as you do as he asks, that would be good. He has provided all I know of to diagnose any software issues, in the absence of actual error messages.
Something to keep in mind is that if we are unable to solve this issue fairly soon with you, you have a 30-day window to box the system back up and return it to Dell for being unsatisfactory to you. That window must be kept in mind. In addition, I would print out all the posts you have in this thread, so that you can tell them what you have done on your own to solve the problem, OK? This would also be good to have if you should choose to call Tech Support and see what they can suggest--it might avoid repetitive actions if you can tell them it has been done, and give them your results--including the Dr. Watson survey.
Try these things, and let us know what it shows, OK? We'll keep track, as will others, and if there is a software reason for this behavior, we'll have done all we can to find it.
Good luck,
Kay
Suzy
10 Posts
0
March 7th, 2000 13:00
With regard to Steve's suggestions:
Been there, done that on Dr. Watson. I know about the Doc and he reported nothing unusual when I ran him immediately after rebooting as a result of a freeze.
This morning I downloaded the DirectX update patch.
I have adjusted the hardware acceleration.
The good news is that it was still running when I got up this a.m. :)
I've been printing everything out and making my notes as I go along.
I've been keeping a crude log of what I've been doing when it freezes (no dates or exact times) so if we need to get into that I can provide you with something.
Just so you know, I consider myself pretty computer savvy so most of this stuff actually means something to me. :) Just wanted you to know so you didn't think this was hopeless.
I'll be out for a couple of hours and will be keeping my fingers crossed as to the state of my computer when I get home. Thanks Kay & Steve.
Suzy
10 Posts
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March 7th, 2000 20:00
Kay H
394 Posts
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March 8th, 2000 12:00
Hi Suzy,
Even though you have done wonders with your resources and you have a great deal of RAM, you will find that you still need to reset the system periodically in order to restore resources and RAM not returned to Windows by programs which have used it. These memory leaks are fairly common, are software errors, and are repairable only by a patch from manufacturers.
Windows 98 seems to require more system restarts than does Windows 95 or Windows NT/2K, so you will need to be aware of this, periodically check your resources, and restart when they get down too far, or else just establish a set time when you restart the system. How often you need to restart is dependent on the software you run and the amount of resources and RAM that software fails to return to Windows when you close it out.
Later,
Kay
Suzy
10 Posts
0
March 8th, 2000 12:00
chriscjc
7 Posts
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March 8th, 2000 19:00
Suzy
10 Posts
0
March 8th, 2000 22:00