Hi everyone,
My system is freezzing up again. This time everything froze whilst in use, (3 x in 1 hour), once within 5 mins of re-starting. My screen saver is off, the monitor power saver is also off.
I have run an AVG anti-virus, all clean.
When I press "CTRL+ALT+DEL" I get the normal message:-

WARNING
The system is either busy or has become unstable. You can wait and see if it becomes available again, or you can restart your computer.

*Press any key to return to windows and wait. (The screen go's blank and thats it, I have to resort to the power button to turn off the PC so that I can turn it back on).

*Press CTRL+ALT+DEL again to restart your computer. You will loose unsaved information in any programs that are running. (That didn't happen, I had to use the power button again).

I'm running Win 98se, Pentium II 400MHz, 256 RAM. Is that enough.

What can I do? Your brains needed urgently. Thanks.

Gary.

I dont no whats hapend, but all seems well again.
Gary.

my nans kept doing that, she only had 64 mb of ram, it goes verry slow and keeps freezing, she was told that she probably needed a new computer. i dont know if that is relevent to you because i dont know if yours goes slow and freezes

Thanks Madmikejt12 for your reply.

I have been told that my PC can only read so much memory.

A short time ago i upgraded the memory from 68Mb, (I think), to 512,(2x256Mb) memory cards. Aparently my PC will only read 128Mb of each card, so it was over memoried as it were, and possibely causing problems.
I have since downgraded the memory, so far the only problem is, it's bloody slow.

Thanks again.
Gary. The End.

ye i dont think thers much you can do about that tho im afraid i think most win98 pcs are going slow now lol i know a few people with them. we have jst got rid of our win 95 one, that was verry slow

win98 can only really cope with 128Mb of RAM otherwise it just starts getting slower. An operating system upgrade will be your best bet.

Could be wrong but IIRC W98 can address only the first 256Mb.

The instability is likely caused by memory, but its IMHO more likely to be a program stuffing the memory rather than a physical memory problem.

A clean install of windows will get your pc running as fast as new again, as the registry gets a bit bloated after a while.

I really appreciate everyones input with this one. My system is no longer freezing up, but the thing that now concerns me is the fact that the PC wont see the 512Mb of memory i installed, it only saw half. I have checked up on the net, and the max for my machine is 512.

I tried each 256 stick on its own, and they both read 128. Do you really think it could be the fact i'm using win98.

Hippywarlock says somthing about IIRD, and IMHO, sorry, I havent the foggyist what that means. He also mentions something about a program possibly stuffing the memory. Is there a way of finding out?

Gary.

Ok I'm doing this from memory so please bear with me...............I haven't touched a 98 computer in a few years

Click Start, click Run, type msconfig, click Advanced, there should be a place with a box to check or uncheck that says Limit memory to. If it's checked go ahead and uncheck it and reboot. Now see if Windows recognizes 512 of ram. If so go back to the setting and set the amount to 512 and check the box that says Limit memory to and restart again, if Windows still sees 512 of ram your all set. If not I'm all out of ideas.

Thanks for the prompt reply Bear.

The box was unchecked, so i tried checking it and entering the amount of RAM i have in my PC and restarting. No go.

Without changing anything, i unchecked the box and restarted, again no go.

Is there a way of checking that the memory sticks are in fact 256MB as labeled? because when i put just one 256MB stick in my PC, it gives a reading of 128MB. AS i said before, my HP vectra vei8/400 should max at 512.

Heres hopeing. Gary.