Windows 98 problem
Jan. 31st, 2006 04:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Anyone out there remember the happy days of Windows 98 SE? T's pc has a problem -- it boots up apparently OK, but freezes within about a minute of finishing populating the desktop. In safe mode, though, it's fine. I've done the obvious things like turning off all the startup gubbins, but no joy. Seen this sort of thing before?
no subject
Date: 2006-01-31 04:39 pm (UTC)Those of us who work on games with a PC version are still living in them:-)
Seen this sort of thing before?
More often than I care to remember:-)
If you go to Settings \ Control Panel \ System \ Device Manager, does anything have a red cross, yellow exclamation, or other strangely coloured appeal for help attached to it?
no subject
Date: 2006-01-31 04:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-31 05:02 pm (UTC)In that case the bext option is probably to go through the boot option tests to see if any particular device or driver has gone bad. There's documentation on this at http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;Q188867 - you can start with the "Windows 98 Starts in Safe Mode" section about halfway down.
By the way, have you (or T) installed anything on T's computer recently?
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Date: 2006-01-31 05:06 pm (UTC)Ahem.
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Date: 2006-01-31 07:05 pm (UTC)Thanks for the link, I'll work through that. I'll also ask her if any new kit etc...
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Date: 2006-01-31 09:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-31 11:55 pm (UTC)1) Set the video card to VGA (basic functionality only) from safe mode. If this fixes it in normal mode, try reinstalling the video driver.
2) Unplugging the video card and plugging it back in.
Good luck! :-)
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Date: 2006-02-01 02:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-31 04:55 pm (UTC)Are you able to do anything in that 'about a minute'?
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Date: 2006-01-31 07:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-31 04:55 pm (UTC)You also get prompted for assorted other things that I never understood, so always said yes to.
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Date: 2006-01-31 05:31 pm (UTC)As
1) Ask myself whether I have recently changed any aspect of the system configuration, including installing new software or hardware or using something which was previously unused. If so, that's the cause 99% of the time.
2) Check whether any of the disks or partitions are more than 80% full. If so, clean out some junk until they're not, then defrag.
3) Unplug all USB, parallel and serial devices and remove all CDs, then try booting again.
4) Scan for virusses. Note that I don't run a virus checker by default since I find defences at point of entry far more effective. If you already run a virus checker, try switching it off for one boot and see if that helps.
5) Check the Task Manager after boot to see what's running and whether anything is grabbing vast amounts of CPU or memory.
6) If still no progress, fall back on F8 as
no subject
Date: 2006-01-31 09:16 pm (UTC)1) I haven't, and T says she hasn't.
2) Only half full, and have defragged.
3) Done that.
4) Her definitions are a few months out of date, but its clean as far as they go. Unfortunately I have no way of updating them as when in safe mode, or when booted from floppy, it can't go online or read them from a CD. I suppose I'll have to copy them across on several floppies... if I can find that many working floppies! Oh, I wonder if I have a bootable CD, presumably that would be OK, I'll have a look.
5) I did manage to fire up the system monitor before it froze, but it was reporting flat memory usage and plenty free.
6) I've now established that even when disabling the entirety of config.sys, autoexec.bat, win.ini, system.ini and the startup group, the error is still present. Yet it isn't present in safe mode. I find this kind of baffling... next thing I'll try is disabling all the devices in Device Manager, although I don't know if that is really any different from disabling the ini files.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-31 09:55 pm (UTC)1) Hard drive is failing.
2) One or more memory chips are failing.
3) Motherboard is failing.
4) A PCI or AGP card is loose or faulty.
After booting in not-safe mode, try downgrading the screen resolution to something really rubbish (lowest available preferably) and see if that prevents the crash.
Try getting hold of a bootable Linux CD for something like Knoppix. Start lots and lots of apps under Linux and see if that crashes it.
If the former test does still crash but the latter does not then you've probably ruled out hardware as a cause. (And if not, you then face the tricky task of working out which hardware is failing.)
If the hardware's OK, you have a really odd Windows problem. If you get that far, reinstalling Windows and all software (after backing up your data, obviously) may be your only option.
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Date: 2006-02-01 02:53 pm (UTC)I think I'll give the memory a proper test just in case...
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Date: 2006-02-01 03:06 pm (UTC)Ugh - I hate vanishing bugs.
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Date: 2006-02-01 03:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-01 03:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-02 04:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-02 04:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-02 04:15 pm (UTC)