My computer goes to sleep and does not want to wake up

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Wakeup has some very good recommendations, there was alot of trouble with the older systems and Win98 with the computer going into sleep or suspend.

Only area you may have trouble with "And disable any
power management and let your Win98SE handle those settings" is some MB's requires PM to be enabled in the CMOS setup or the computer will not shut down (ATX systems) but will act more like an "AT" system and give the screen "it is safe to shutdown" instead.

ASKER

I dont mind getting the "it is safe to shutdown" screen. However, after following Wakeup's suggestion, the problem is still occuring

I went into CMOS and disabled every power management option and then in Windows I set the power management to always power on and for the monitor to always be on.

I left the system for a couple hours and when I came back the system was frozen in the screensaver mode. I could not unfreeze it and had to reboot again.

This is beginning to frustrate me.

Jasguild

Have you tried disabling the screen saver? Maybe the screen saver is corrupt?
When it locked up before you disabled power management, did you notice if it was locked up in screen saver mode? or was it a black screen that it was locked at? Does it lock up on you when you use your computer?
Or just when it sits?

Crash2100

is the monitor just turning off or is the computer going into stand by mode? Does the light on your computer turn from green to amber?

ASKER

Well previously it was locking up in a blank screen. However after disabling all the PM options, it locked up in screen saver mode.

Will look at the light next Crash 2100.

HOWEVER, the computer is now freezing even when in use which indicates I might have a problem independent from a powermanagement problem.

I recently added a SIIG pci USB card. That is the only recent changes I have made to my system. I wrote siig and got the following response. I performed all of the suggestions except #4 & 5 of SIIG's suggestion but the problem still occurred this morning. I did not do #4 because when I did I got an exclamation mark through my sound card. I did not do #5 because I did not know enough about my motherboard to do the update. What I do know is I have a ALI motherboard and SIIG said that ALI does not have a driver for USB so I probably would not have been able to do #5 anyway.

jay

Siig's response

Try these suggestions one at a time.

1. Move the card into a different PCI slot.

2. The USB.INF file might be corrupted, try the following steps to
restore it.
Insert the Win98 CD-ROM and close the window when it pops up.
Go to START | PROGRAMS | ACCESSORIES | SYSTEM TOOLS | SYSTEM
INFORMATION |TOOLS | SYSTEM FILE CHECKER.
Choose "Extract one file installation disk" type USB.INF in the
blank, and click START. Next to the "Restore from" blank, hit
BROWSE.
Click the plus sign (+) next to the CD-ROM drive, highlight the Win98
folder, and click OK.
Choose to restore the file to the C:\Windows\INF folder, and click
OK.
Click OK again on the Backup Folder window to backup the original
file.
Windows will tell you file has been successfully extracted. Restart
your computer to accept the new setting.

3. Click or cut and paste link below to update the OHCI (Open Host
Controller Interface). For Windows 98SE only.
ftp://www.siig.com/ohci.exe

4. Enable/Disable the USB option in the CMOS setup.

5. Update the latest driver for your motherboard chipset (BIOS).
Click link below for the drivers. Go to Device Manager/System Devices
if not sure what motherboard BIOS you have.
<http://www.siig.com/drivers/usb_pc_update_driver.html>

Let me know the result.
Thank you,
Erick

jasguild,

What you can try to do to see if it is the USB card is to take it out and see if you still get any lockups. If you do, then it obviously is not the USB card if you dont, then we will have to either try and mess with your settings and figure out what is conflicting with your USB card. Let us know how that goes.

And while you have the cover off, check your fans to be sure they are spinning fast enough to keep things cool, and if there is any dust build-up then clean this too, pay close attention to the heatsink on the CPU, they can get dust build-up and cause overheating and still look OK.

ASKER

Pulled out the usb card and for the past several hours there has been no lock ups.

Has to be the SIIG card

The thing is I suspect I might be running out of IRQ locations because with the SIIG card in, I was using all my available pci slots.

However, there were no conflicts shown in device manager.

I have a IDE controller card and I notice before I pulled the SIIG card, it was sharing the same IRQ location with the SIIG card which was #11

The other two IRQ locations for the SIIG card were in #9 sharing with the modem

This configuration must be the culprit.

A friend of mine just suggested that I try to use the onboard USB rather than a card. I would only have USB 1.0 as opposed to the USB 2.0 but at least I would get past the conflict.

MOst important, I have to make up my mind tonight because I bought the SIIG card 13 days ago. If I want to take it back I have to do so by tomorrow or else BestBuy wont take it back.

What do you think I should do??

jason

Do you need the USB 2.0 standard for devices? if not then go with the onboard USB ports. If you do need the USB 2.0 then it may be time to start looking for a new computer or if you build them yourself then maybe a new MB to add to yours for now.

ASKER

I installed the onboard USB ports and UNFORTUNATELY the computer still freezes. I suspect that I am having IRQ conflicts as someone suggested.

I have detailed my IRQ configuration. Please let me know what you think.

Thanks

jasguild

Setting Hardware using the setting
00 System timer

01 Standard 101/102-Key or Microsoft Natural Keyboard
02 Programmable interrupt controller
04 Communications Port (COM1)

05 Creative AWE64 16-bit Audio (SB16 compatible)
06 Standard Floppy Disk Controller

07 ECP Printer Port (LPT1)
08 System CMOS/real time clock
09 IRQ Holder for PCI Steering

09 Win95-98 Maxtor Ultra ATA 100 IDE Controller
10 IRQ Holder for PCI Steering
10 MSP5900-U Modem

11 IRQ Holder for PCI Steering
11 ALi PCI to USB Open Host Controller

12 PS/2 Compatible Mouse Port
13 Numeric data processorController

14 ALi M5229 PCI Bus Master IDE Controller
14 Primary IDE controller (dual fifo)

15 ALi M5229 PCI Bus Master IDE Controller
15 Secondary IDE controller (dual fifo)

Check in Device Manager and see if you have any yellow "!" or red "X"
It really doesn't look like you are having any IRQ conflicts, you even have one IRQ free (3)

You can try removing one device at a time (modem, sound card, ect) and see if that helps, maybe even move devices from one PCI slot to another (some slots share resources with another)
Do this one at a time and reboot and test to see if any difference. If you do more then one thing and suddenly it is OK then you will have to backtrack and try one at a time so just do one from beginning.

ASKER

No yellow exclamation mark or no red X mark.

I am sure the computer is freezing because of this last device I am trying to add. If I take it off, it does not freezes but if I attach a device it freezes.

As mentioned above I have tried to add this USB by a pci card and now by using the onboard controller. Both approaches result in my computer freezing.

ahhhh

I will try to relocate the devices to see if that helps.

Any other suggestions would be appreciated.
jasguild

ASKER

I eventually gave up on this desktop. Took took out the usb card and took it down to the salvation army.

Have since built a new computer

Soyo Dragon Ultra MB
Atlon XP 2000 mhz
256 MB DDR 333mhz memory
PNY GeForce 3 video with 64 mb
Maxtor 40gig Harddrive
Toshiba 16x dvd
TDK 12x cdr
17" Moniter

LOve it!!!!

jasguild