computer locking up

phirephly, first thing as I suggest you is to move your second HD to be the primary slave so that all hard disks are on the same link. Different rate of transfer on the secondary IDE (CDrom-primary,WD HD as slave) may be one of the cause of hanging if in case your WD HD is the type of UDMA.

Moreover, what type of PCI-network card it is?

As you've an ISA sound card, have you assign it using the IRQ5.    

Try this:

Go into DISPLAY Settomgs and change from the Hercules VIDEO
CARD to STANDARD VGA, 640 x 480  at 16 COLORS.

Shut down your computer, turn off your computer.
Turn on your computer, boot up in normal mode, run it like
this for a day or two and post back here any lock-ups that you
have and list what program that you were in when these lock
ups occured.

Have you disabled all power management features especially if enabled in your bios and see if it makes a difference.

Your CD rom assuming it is working now should operate fine with Win98 driver.

WARNING: YOU MAY BURN YOUR HAND IF YOU ARE NOT CAREFUL. HOWEVER, IT SEEMS LIKELY THAT YOUR COMPUTER IS OVERHEATING.

1. When the computer locks up, leave it on for a little, in a cold area. If it fixes itself, we have found it.

2. If it does not: Tuen off your computer, and reboot. Use until another lock. BE CAREFUL SO YOU DON'T BURN YOURSELF, BUT FEEL THE CASING OF BOTH COMPUTER AND MOTNITOR. Tell us if either, or both, is exeptionally hot.

3. Run diagnostics every 0:03:00 h:mm:ss and tell us if the temperature of the computer is heating up.

4. If the computer tends to lock up more quickly after a lock/reboot, it would be likely that this is the case. The computer has turned it's hard drive off to protect it from being permanently damaged. Buy a new fan for it, and have someone install it. It is a nontrivial operation to do yourself.

Good luck.

Tell us the results.

--SmartGamer

    I would suspect  messed-up DLLs -- have you run SFC to check?

here's an update on what's going on:

The test that I'm using right now is the screen saver.

I changed the how the HDDs and the CD ROM were hooked up.  I put the WD HDD on the primary master, and decided to just not hook up the second HDD for now.  The CD ROM is the secondary master.  This didn't do it.  It still locked up on the screen saver.  I dropped the colors to 16 and the resolution to 640 x 480.  This didn't do a thing to change it. The screen saver still locked up.  Usually just a couple minutes after activation. The only things running were the sound thing (speaker thing in the taskbar), Novell Network (but I wasn't logged on), and the scheduled tasks monitor.  I checked and all the power management stuff is disabled int he BIOS.  When I tried to turn off a few other things, Win98 ceased to boot.  I've reloaded the fail-safe BIOS settings and I'm reinstalling Win now to see if that helps. I'm pretty sure the comp is not overheating.  I don't have the thing fully covered, so it has a lot of airflow.  Almost immediately after a lockup, I removed the processoer fan, and the processor was cool, not hot at all to the touch.  I couldn't feel anything else that was hot, the memory was relatively cool.  The only thing that was warm was the vid adapter, but I could keep my fingers on it without being burnt.  The monitor was cool.  It could be some messed up DLLs, but there aren't too many on there, I started for a formatted HDD install of Win98 (ed. 1) a couple weeks ago.  I think that the Hercules stuff isn't installed right when I look at the driver properties, there is no manufacturer or the other thing under that.  Would there be somewhere to find Herc drivers?  As I mentioned above, I can't get on the website, and a tech support phone number I had found is a 1-800 number for voice mail retrieval.  I have another vid adapter, an AGP diamond monster fusion, but when I put it in, all the text on the screen is garbled.  I'd rather not buy a new vid adapter unless I know that it's the problem.  Does this help anyone any more?

pslh - yes, the sound card is on IRQ 5, but I have removed it temporarily to see if that helps anything.  The network adapter is made by Realtek.

There was a conflict between the vid adapter and the network adapter when the cards were in a different order in the computer.  Switching which PCI thing they were plugged into made my network adapter work again.  

Thanks again everyone.

mich

mich,
(1) This machine is building by you or an OEM Pc. First check with motherboard manufacturer, if there is any BIOS upgrade and other necessary motherboard drivers.
(2) Try to set the CMOS/BIOS with power management turn on or enabled.  Go to window98, set the power turn ON ie. <all set to "never" >. Go to the screen saver, set to <none>.

    Restart the computer and boot into command mode.
    Do "scandisk /autofix" and then do "scanreg /fix".

    Afterwards, reboot to safe mode, remove the display driver device and monitor in the device manager of control panel-system.
 
    Shut down the computer for 10min.

    Restart the computer to normal mode. The display driver and monitor will be re-detected.

    Restart the computer for at least 3 times.

    Then go to set the screen saver by "flying window" and set for 1 min.  Let it stand more than 1 min. See if there is any crash.

Let me know your result.      pslh

I saw posted on EE here sometime back a recommendation
by another EE individual that if you did not use the latest
Windows 98 Realtek NIC Card Driver, from Realtek, that the
driver that was supplied with the NIC card would cause problems
in WIN98.  This person recommended downloading and installing the latest Realtek Win98 Driver from the Realtek web
site.

I have not tried this myself, so I do not know if it will work, and
it is only a suggestion on my part.

Hercules has,unfortunately,folded its tent;so you'll get no drivers there.

Havn't seen this mentioned so far - you might want to give it a try: set 'Hardware acceleration' to 'none' in System - Performance - Graphics.

here's an update on what's going on:

The test that I'm using right now is the screen saver.

I changed the how the HDDs and the CD ROM were hooked up.  I put the WD HDD on the primary master, and decided to just not hook up the second HDD for now.  The CD ROM is the secondary master.  This didn't do it.  It still locked up on the screen saver.  I dropped the colors to 16 and the resolution to 640 x 480.  This didn't do a thing to change it. The screen saver still locked up.  Usually just a couple minutes after activation. The only things running were the sound thing (speaker thing in the taskbar), Novell Network (but I wasn't logged on), and the scheduled tasks monitor.  I checked and all the power management stuff is disabled int he BIOS.  When I tried to turn off a few other things, Win98 ceased to boot.  I've reloaded the fail-safe BIOS settings and I'm reinstalling Win now to see if that helps. I'm pretty sure the comp is not overheating.  I don't have the thing fully covered, so it has a lot of airflow.  Almost immediately after a lockup, I removed the processoer fan, and the processor was cool, not hot at all to the touch.  I couldn't feel anything else that was hot, the memory was relatively cool.  The only thing that was warm was the vid adapter, but I could keep my fingers on it without being burnt.  The monitor was cool.  It could be some messed up DLLs, but there aren't too many on there, I started for a formatted HDD install of Win98 (ed. 1) a couple weeks ago.  I think that the Hercules stuff isn't installed right when I look at the driver properties, there is no manufacturer or the other thing under that.  Would there be somewhere to find Herc drivers?  As I mentioned above, I can't get on the website, and a tech support phone number I had found is a 1-800 number for voice mail retrieval.  I have another vid adapter, an AGP diamond monster fusion, but when I put it in, all the text on the screen is garbled.  I'd rather not buy a new vid adapter unless I know that it's the problem.  Does this help anyone any more?

pslh - yes, the sound card is on IRQ 5, but I have removed it temporarily to see if that helps anything.  The network adapter is made by Realtek.

There was a conflict between the vid adapter and the network adapter when the cards were in a different order in the computer.  Switching which PCI thing they were plugged into made my network adapter work again.  

Thanks again everyone.

mich

Mich,

You posted the same thing that you posted earlier. Did you check to see if your motherboard is compatible with the AMD CPU?

Friend had problem with Diamond Monster Fusion, driver... check this link if pertinent:  (Also Diamond's In-Control tools may need updating as well).
http://search.support.microsoft.com/kb/search.asp?D=win98x+or+ierelease+or+custserv+or+crossnet&A=T&T=B&SG=&S=F&SD=SO&T1=&FR=0&DU=C&Sz=%28%22windows+98%22%29+and+diamond+and+monster+and+fusion&O=diamond+monster+fusion

http://www.diamondmm.com/

Diamond Multimedia's website link.

Note:  A well made PC will cool better with the cover on.  Unless you have another fan blowing right on the case.

If you only changed the display settings to 640X480 at 16 colors, you missed a step.  Change the driver used for the Video card in Device Manager to Standard VGA, or equivalent.  Then give it a try.

BTW, have you updated DirectX and other critical updates for your Windows 98 system from WindowsUpdate?  Recommend it if not already done.  Also recommend using the DirectX diagnostic tool which is helpful under the Accessories/System Tools submenus or directly as follows:
start - run - msinfo32 - tools - under the tools submenu you'll find the DirectX diagnostic tool.  Checks numerous components and drivers, etc.

the CMOS-clearing appears to have solved the trick of the locking up when I removed the sound card from my computer.  Whenever I put in the ISA sound card, Win will not boot, regardless of the CMOS jumper.  I put in a SB PCI 128 that I had lying around, and that allows it to boot.  I also believe that I found that the vid adapter did not have it's drivers installed properly, so Win was not happy.  In Control Panel>System>then the properties for my vid adapter on the drivers tab, the manufacturer and date installed date were listed as "Not Available".  I had Win install the drivers for them, so the properties accurately reflect the correct manufacturer for the driver. I think that the locking up is done, it locked once this morning when I was doing something, but that was before I put the drivers in.  Now I have no Internet (I'm on a LAN).  I will see if the compter has locked up since this morning when I return home in a couple hours.  I've reinstalled the drivers for my NIC and also used the Win Add Hardware tool, and nothing seems to work. The NIC doesn't even appear in winipcfg anymore. Will see if the locking up is done.  If it is, then my original question is done, I think.  My motherboard does support an AMD processor, there is a dip switch box on the motherboard that you use to tell the board which type of processor is on it and the proper voltage for the processor.  My exact processor was specifically listed in the manual with a dip config.  I know I pulled the dips right because I checked them a couple times.  I don't know if this helps anyone, but I think my sound card and the vid adapter are both going after IRQ 5, I don't know if this is a big deal or if they can share it. Just thought it might help someone.  Awmitie suggested running SFC to check for messed up DLL's.  I hope they wouldn't get messed up this quickly after a clean Win install, but what is SFC?  

Thanks again all,

mich

Mich, I'm glad my suggestion regarding the Cmos worked, however I had hoped that you would have followed the remaining procedures. Sometimes various cards, sound, NIC's, video etc do scramble resources and it pays to handle the install of each one on a "one at a time" basis.

If the machine is stable, then we can go on to sort out the remainder of the problems.

SFC means System File Checker. When you load Win98 initially, it creates a baseline file log of the files on the system during the install. This log shows them by file name, date and version. When you run SFC, this initial log is compared against a scan of the system and then advises you of the changes it finds.

Normally, you cretae this log after installing and then updating Win98 with Windows Update. This insures that you can scan your system and recover files that are arbitrarily changed by software installs that you make.
Dennis

I think your right on with the IRQ sharing.  It may work just fine, but suspect it on further problems.  And if you can change it, even better.

Have you gone into Device MAnager(in the control panel)? If so, and you told us about it, sorry I misread. If you haven't, go into Device Manager and look for any yellow (!) or any red (X).
If there are any at all:

YELLOW (!)
You may have a device conflict, the device is not present, or the device is not working.

Windows can keep on working anyway. A Yellow (!)  may sometimes be shown erroneously.

RED (X)
THIS DEVICE ID CURRENTLY HARMFUL TO YPUR SYSTEM: There IS DEFINITELY a conflict between it and something else, or the device is not present and that is disruptign Windows... or the device is sticking it's nose into places it really shouldn't and interfering with normal processes

A RED (X) IS NEVER DISPLAYED ERRONIOUSLY. IF YOU HAVE ONE, YOU HAVE A REALLY BIG PROBLEM. REMOVE THE DEVICE IMMEDEATELY IF NOT SOONER!

Please tell us if you have either of the (!)(X) markers, and on what devices. And be carreful in the System Manager!


--SmartGamer

On the Red X header... I mistyped. Here's how that first all caps part should read:
THIS DEVICE IS CURRENTLY HARMFUL TO YOUR SYSTEM:...

Sorry.

--SmartGamer

SmartGamer:  A Red X indicates that the device is disabled.  It does not indicate that the device is harmful.

I never posted it, but there were no device conflict or device disabled stickers over any devices in the Control Panel.  Since this morning I have had no lockups.  I still have no network.  As prescribed by Dennis, I took all the cards out of my system, once again cleared the CMOS and restarted the computer.  The vid adapter is in the first PCI slot.  Everything came up ok, then I added the SB PCI 128 card in the second PCI slot.  Win refused to boot.  I pulled out the sound card and restarted.  Win came up in safe mode, and I went into the control panel and removed ALL my devices like sound card, NIC, vid adapter, and monitor.  There were many copies of some of these, and some were even inaccurate or really old hardware that isn't on my system, and almost all of it didn't show up in the System thing in normal Windows' Control Panel>System thing.  Now I'm rebuilding back up from there.  I put the sound card in the third PCI slot and everything seems to work fine so far.  I just need to add the NIC and if I can get that working without any lockups, everything will be cool (for the first time in FOREVER!).  

I think we're just about out of the woods with this one, but it is the NIC that wasn't working before I took the computer apart.  I'm going to leave the computer run here for a couple hours and see if it locks up.  I'll hopefully be able to post whether or not the NIC install went well tonight in about 4 hours.  

Thank you for all for all your help.  Lots of great ideas here.  Hopefully I'm close to being done. I'm sure you all know how frustrating it is to have one of your babies down.  Take it easy and have a good night!

mich

I'm sorry I forgot to add this above, but after I deleted all the devices out of the Safe Mode in Win, the monitor was reinstalled on a different IRQ, so I don't think sharing is an issue anymore.  The monitor is on 11 and the sound card is on 10. I think this weird safe mode thing is what helped do that because nothing else before that has done this. (If that makes any sense to you, cheers to you!!) I just keep telling myself that these computers are supposed to make our lives *easier*  :-)

mich

It's quite common that resource conflicts and/or duplicate assignments appear in Safe and not normal mode in our experience.  Ensure that ALL occurrences are removed.  You've got plenty of support on this issue from folks already, just wanted to add that the Nic card typically prefers 10, sound can live elsewhere quite nicely; but then.... you'll decide.

Okay Mich, we'll wait on you!

Sorry I haven't got back sooner. Spent the free hours I had at 8 rearranging the cards in my computer. I had to try five different configurations before all the cards worked and were happy in their spot. Right now, the computer has been up for over three hours. If it's still up in the morning (and I don't doubt it will be), we're done! See y'all in the morning!

mich

Glad to hear it Mich!

    Regarding Hercules, they've gone bottom up, bankrupt.  You might try the web site at http://driverguide.com for a possible driver.

1.How will you ever manage to split up the points?

2. Hercules went bankrupt? I wonder if it's because their monitors loked up computers! ;-)

Gamer, if you note Mich's comment of Tuesday, November 16 1999 - 03:55PM EST, you will see clearly how the fix was accomplished. Obviously it had nothing to do with heat or yellow or red marks anywhere. As for points splitting, that is up to Mich, if points need to be spilt at all!

My box has been up for about 16 continuous hours now; a new record since August.

This was the answer that containted all the right steps to follow.  Others had great ideas that didn't apply to my particular case.  For the record, what solved the problem was this:

1.  clearing the CMOS settings.
2.  taking out the cards (sound, NIC)
3.  booting in safe mode
4.  clearing out the TONS of duplicate entries in the system config in the control panel (this was not suggested from anyone originally, but commented on after I mentioned doing it)
5.  adding the cards back in one at a time and experimenting with which card worked in which PCI slot (because there are a lot of configurations of cards in slots that do NOT work, I have four of them in a (paper) notebook by my computer)

I did not have to reload Win98 on my system again.  I had just installed it clean on a new formatted HDD a couple weeks prior thinking that it might help solve this problem.  That's a wrap all, thanks a lot for all your help!

mich

Well done!

Phirephly:

Glad to hear that the outcome was this positive, especially given that you've been tackling this since August.  Additionally, I commend you for reiterating the process that worked and providing the key to your solution.  Like yours truly, you've learned a most valuable lesson in this process .... the simple piece often overlooked .... boot in SAFE MODE and discover the reality.

Dew-associates:  Once again, Dennis, congratulations on your insightful brainstorming and troubleshooting.  I'd have given you an A grade; but then, that's just me.

Best wishes to all.  I'm pleased each time I check in and find another solution has evolved; especially one that was elusive and heretofore a roadblock/mystery.  

Asta

Thanks to you, Dennis, you've helped me discover many alternatives in my troubleshooting processes and I have very much appreciated it; reflected through time by my grading process.  Don't mean to use this thread as personal communique but part of the closure; sorry for any frowns I may create along the road, none intended.

Asta smiling :) (kind of)
   O       O

       ^

      <-)

Thanks Asta!

Dennis:  Just wanted to second Asta's comment.

And thank you too Awmytie!