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I have just crashed one of my computers and I can't figure out the cause. Everything was fine until Friday when I put in an Adelphia cable modem self-installation CD because my wife wants to be able to use Adelphia's email (we also have free AOL; long story, don't ask).

After Friday, the random crash bug started appearing, most notably when I go to a website that uses Macromedia Flash (such as BobtheBuilder.com and Sesamestreet.com; I was babysitting this weekend, don't ask about that either). It was also crashing when I'd log on to AOL.

The first thing I did was to reinstall AOL, since that was when the problem first appeared. It worked intermittently, so finally, I deleted all of the network adapters and started over. The problem seemed to go away.

Then I went to Sesamestreet.com (the baby wanted to play with Elmo) and the machine froze. I rebooted again and it froze again. I thought it may have been the website, so I went to Bobthebuilder.com and the machine froze again. Thinking that maybe I was having some sort of network problems I booted up my other machine and tried out those websites and everything runs fine on it.

I have run Scandisk (both from DOS and Windows), Norton WinDoctor and Norton Disk Doctor, but the problem won't go away.

I reinstalled Windows (twice!) and now my machine is crashing at the start-up on an intermittant basis. Do you guys have any suggestions? Thanks in advance.

Here are my technical specs:

Soyo SY-7VCA2 motherboard
P3 866 MHz CPU
384 MB PC133 SDRAM
VIA on-board AC97 sound
ATI Rage Fury Pro video card
Netgear 10/100 network card
Maxtor 30 GB hard drive
Windows 98SE with all of the latest patches and critical updates from Microsoft

Probably not the most detailed answer that you'll get

But since when have you upgraded your RAM. I can't remember the exact amount that 98 can take, but I know that there is a limit, and if you go over it you will get into some problems. Will find the exact number it can take later on.

When I first built this computer about three years ago, I put 128 MB of SDRAM in it. Then about two years ago, the price of RAM dropped and I picked up 256 MB more. The chips may be old enough to have developed a memory leak, but I don't think that system RAM is a problem because up until last Friday, I haven't had any system stability problems (which is also why I don't think it's a hardware compatibility problem, either).

Well I'm at a lost, I can point you to this program, I'm not sure how good it is. But it instills a little bit of hope for the time at least.

Thanks for the link, Tamerlane, I'll try it out when I boot that machine up tomorrow. One of the things that is odd about my latest problem is that I'm not getting any sort of message from Windows (it's not a page fault error or fatal exception error); the machine either freezes or blacks out and begins a new boot cycle.

Originally posted by HighLordDave
I reinstalled Windows (twice!) and now my machine is crashing at the start-up on an intermittant basis. Do you guys have any suggestions? Thanks in advance.

If it's crashing at startup I'd be prepared to look at hardware faults or drivers. When you reinstalled did you use the same display driver from the previous installation? Try either the default MS VGA driver or ATI's latest contribution.

Windows 9x can handle up to 512MB properly, so I doubt it's due to too much RAM. However, what you are describing is fairly close to what Windows 2000 will do in the event of a memory failure. Have you tried running the PC without one of the memory modules? Also, what type and wattage power supply are you using?

Two things that might be worth trying:

1) Re-install IE or try Netscape.

2) Re-install Shockwave player.

@Mr Sleep:
I have uninstalled IE 6.0 and re-installed IE 5.5 and the problem still wouldn't go away, so I re-installed IE 6.0 hoping that it would overwrite any browser problems I was having. I tried to re-install Macromedia Flash 6.0 but the problem won't go away.

After listening to your suggestions and talking with some guys downstairs, I've decided to swipe USB hard drive from work, copy the entire partition to it, then fdisk/format/re-install the hard drive and see if my problem then goes away. At that point, I will refuse to install the Adelphia CD my wife wanted installed (of course, she blames me for messing up "her" computer, even though she's the one who wanted the thing updated).

HLD,

1. Just pop out and reinstall your memory modules. It sometimes has amazing consequences.

2. this is a great site for testing the HDD

3. FDISK. Remove all partitions and start from scratch provided two works out ok

4. (this should actually be 1.5) Remove the memory modules and try running the mahcine with only one mem mod in the machine. Try the 128, see how it goes, and then try the 256. If one of the chips does have a mem leak, get rid of it.

5. Use the tools in step 2 to not only check the disk thoroughly but perform a low level format. What have you got to lose.

Past that, I'd need to spend some time with the machine. If there were any resource conflicts from recent hardware/software install, they should have been corrected with a layover reinstall. I agree with Flibble that the problem is hardware related.

Ah, you may also want to check temperatures. If the mahcine is Intel chipset based, odds are temps are fine. You'd have to run the mahchine in a sauna to test the temp threshholds.

//end HLD long post mode

Good Luck man.

Andrew's Law of computing #42: As soon as someone asks you to look at their computer and potentially diagnose/treat a problem, you are further exonerated from any subsequent damage you may cause with your actions.

This is all you'll have to show your wife as my work still remains unpublished. However, if you want to subscribe to my credo, its' free and geared to relieve tekky individuals from any responsibility when tampering on others computers.

Well, I think I isolated my problem. I backed up everything that was important, tore the machine apart and rebuilt it last night. Everything was going fine until I tried to load AOL. Upon connection, the random crash bug reappeared.

I believe it to be the Netgear FA311 10/100 network card I put in it over the weekend. I had earlier discounted this as a problem because I put an identical card in my other machine and have had no problems at all on that computer.

I replaced the 10/100 card with an old 3Com 10BaseT card and everything seems to be fine. I tried to reinstall the Netgear drivers but it was still freezing, so I am going to take it back and exchange it for another card (on the chance that I got a lemon) and if that doesn't work, exchange it for a 3Com or Linksys card (if it turns out to be some sort of compatibility issue between the card, my mobo and Windows).

Interesting. Nice work. Considered getting rid of AOL?

I've thought about it, but I probably won't since the kids have AOL accounts through their father, and my wife and I don't pay for it. I have a buddy who works for AOL and each employee gets two accounts with seven screen names each. We each have one SN as do two other people (for a total of five) who share the account. Most of what we use it for is e-mail, but the kids like to use the IM features and I like to visit Hecklers Online.

The thing that bothers me about AOL is that it likes to rewrite system files and take over network adapters (this may be what happened to me), but I don't see us completely getting rid of it as long as it's free. You'll notice, though, that I haven't installed AOL on my new computer.

Originally posted by HighLordDave
but I don't see us completely getting rid of it (AOL)

One never completely gets rid of it, i wonder sometimes if it doesn't flash BIOS as well

One more reason I'm glad AOL isn't available here. I still remember the nightmare of trying to get rid of Compuserve from some systems.