More computer help questions

[Debbie]

Sorry, it's me again.
I think my computer justs doesn't like me!
Either that or it needs a vacation.
Seriously something is not right.

I have defragged my computer.
Run anti virus checks, increased my memory,
threatened my computer, whispered sweet
nothings in it's little ports and still I get
error messages. (microsoft ones and this
program has performed an illegal operation.)

Sometimes I am typing and there is a lag before
the words appear on the screen.

The biggest problem is I keep getting dropped
by my ISP. I know there is no problem with my
ISP as I know other people with the same ISP as
me and they love it.
When I dial back up, I get dropped instantly unless
I restart my computer and then it's fine for a little while.
I am running windows 98.
Any ideas?

 

[heterotic]

It could be the serious computer virus you mentioned in the second to last line there... Seriously, though, illegal operations are a part of windows. You could try upgrading to 2000 or XP to minimize those problems. Incorrectly uninstalled programs can cause hard to find problems. Make sure your virus dat files and engine are up to date.
You could also try reinstalling windows 98, if you can't upgrade.

 

[SexySlut2]

I have some of those same problems.
I downloaded IE 6 and now my comp wont even finish loading.
I get an error message that says IE has caused an error in shdocvm.dll or something like that and have no idea how to fix it.
It even does it in safe mode!

 

[heterotic]

Or try holding it out the window and threatening to drop it. That's worked consistently for a laptop owner I know.

 

[Zamdrist]

When I dial back up, I get dropped instantly unless
I restart my computer and then it's fine for a little while.
I am running windows 98.
Any ideas?

It not at all unusual for Windows 98 to behave like this. It seems to eat up memory and not burp it back up again until you force it to by rebooting.

If you have one of those edge-to-edge full color photos as your background, remove it. Those bitmaps as they are called eat up a ton of memory.

Keep doing the defrag and scandisk. I do without a virus checker...I think they are evil. I've had very limited issues with viruses. Now that I say that...

 

[Summery]

Debbie, sounds like you and I are having very similar problems.
Only I am using Windows 2000.

 

[AzureAngel]

Honestly, Windows 98 is inherently unstable. but I know you're experiencing EXTRA problems.

What can you do... well. That depends on your system. An upgrade of the OS might not be happy with an older PC.

Is it any old program dying, or specific programs?

And... I hate to say this... but you could reformatting. Honestly, sometimes with 98 that's the only solution. if you have a CD burner or a 2nd hard drive, it's much less painful.

 

[heterotic]

Just remember, there's really no winning with operating systems.

VMS sucks.
TOPS-10 sucks in 36 bits.
TOPS-20 sucks more.
Solaris sucks, slowly.
SunOS sucks.
MS-DOS doesn't qualify, but sucks.
Ultrix/OSF1/Digital Unix/Whatever-it-is-this-week sucks.
DG/UX sucks.
HP/UX sucks.
Dynix sucks.
Esix sucks.
CTIX sucks.
Coherent sucks.
SCO sucks, expensively.
Xenix also doesn't qualify, but sucks.
Unicos sucks.
MVS sucks.
VM sucks.
CMS sucks.
NOS sucked.
NOS/VE sucks, but less so.
AOS sucks.
AOS/VS sucks.
CP/M sucks.
ComOS sucks in one port and out the other.
IOS uses BGP to know which of its peers sucks the most.
Atari TOS sucks the snow off Mt. Fuji.
QNX sucks in real time.
All Apple OSes really suck.
Magic Cap does not qualify, but sucks, graphically.
Minix sucks.
(Free|Net|Open)BSD[386] suck.
BSDI sucks.
Linux sucks differently every time a kernel is released.
PR1MOS sucks.
Venix EDS sucks (and it runs the 777).
OS/400 sucks, but you don't have access to QSYSLIB/WRKSUKSTS to find out how much.
OS/9 doesn't qualify, but still sucks.
but OS/2 sucks.
IRIX sucks.
AmigaDOS sucks.
DomainOS sucks.
GCOS sucks.
MPE sucks.
MPE/ix sucks.
Sinix sucks.
VS sucks Wang.
UnixWare sucks.
Netware doesn't qualify, but sucks.
Windows 3.1x -- see DOS.
Windows NT sucks, but not as hard as Windows 3.1.
Windows 95 doesn't suck; it blows.
Plan 9 sucks on lots of machines at once.
Oberon is considered harmful, and sucks.
Amoeba sucks, distributedly.
Eunice sucks so bad Larry Wall made special mention of it.
NextStep sucks, but it's pretty.
Nachos sucks, but only students know how.
Mach sucks, but nobody knows how.
Spring sucks in little pieces all over the place.
They all suck.

 

[Summery]

LOL Heterotic!


I don't mean to hijack your thread Debbie.
But, I am running Windows 2000 and having very comparable problems.
My computer does all it's weekly and monthly maintenance. My virus scan is updated....what gives.
Maybe I have downloaded some seriously bad porn!

 

[AzureAngel]

Here's the reason I suggest a reformat. If you've been running your computer for a long while... installed (and uninstalled) a lot of programs... Windows just gets congested. That's the BEST way I can put it. It gets congested.

When I had 98, I probably reformatted every 6 months. It worked pretty well for me. I usually had to reboot at least once every two days... but yeah, other than that it was MOSTLY okay.

Anohter thing you can try, though I'm sure it won't help THIS problem... it wll help other stuf... is getting one of the programs that flushes out your Ram. Like MaxMem. Windows 98 likes to leave things in your Ram even after the program is closed. Bleh.

XP, for me, has been great. I don't have to reboot hardly at ALL, ever.

 

[heterotic]

That's actually kinda possible, SummerRose. If you have to many adware/spyware/whatever programs running at once, it'll slow down your system quite a bit, and could even make words you type appear slowly on the screen during unfortunate convergences of cpu activity.

 

[AzureAngel]

Of course... before reformatting. You could make sure all your drivers for your hardware is up to date.

Hardware to check:
1) Motherboard
2) Videocard (if separate from mobo)
3) Modem (if separate...)
4) Sound card (if separate...)

Those are the MAIN ones to check on.

 

[dreamer]

I went just over three years running Win98 without a crash...with a upgrate to SE in there. My techs never believed me, but seriously not one!

I'd re-install windows , it could be you've lost a file or something has become corrupted. Defrag more than once won't really do anything. Good luck to ya!

6mos and counting on WinXP Pro....am I just lucky?

Oh yeah BTW, I shut down when I leave my computer...mostly just at night...but if I'm gonna be gone for a couple hours for dinner or something I'll shut down then too. Windows is NOT meant to be run non stop.

 

[AzureAngel]

That's actually kinda possible, SummerRose. If you have to many adware/spyware/whatever programs running at once, it'll slow down your system quite a bit, and could even make words you type appear slowly on the screen during unfortunate convergences of cpu activity.

For spyware - http://download.cnet.com/downloads/0-10106-108-63806.html - Go there and get AdAware. Freeware program... good stuff.

 

[AzureAngel]

Not so much luck as it depends on what you have installed, with 98. *Nods.*

XP.. I've yet to have XP crash on me. I love it. Winamp died the other night. If it as 98, I would have had to hit my restart button. XP... just kill the process. It's happy. Or IE crashes... doesn't even BOTHER XP.

 

[Summery]

For spyware - http://download.cnet.com/downloads/0-10106-108-63806.html - Go there and get AdAware. Freeware program... good stuff.

I'll check it out.

Thank you.

 

[heterotic]

Oh yeah BTW, I shut down when I leave my computer...mostly just at night...but if I'm gonna be gone for a couple hours for dinner or something I'll shut down then too. Windows is NOT meant to be run non stop.

Which kinda sucks, since computer components wear out faster the more often the computer is turned on and off.
If you don't want to go for Linux and be branded as a computer geek, there's always Solaris.

 

[AzureAngel]

OH! You shut down every night! No WONDER you had such luck!

Hah. XP runs every night. *Grins.*

 

[AzureAngel]

Summer- make sure you back up the files before you eradicate them! For example, I have Kazaa... or HAD. It has spyware with it. If you zap the Spyware, Kazaa will NOT work anymore. It may be the same with other programs. So be SURE to back up - it's a feature in AdAware.

On that note, I now use Limewire.

 

[Debbie]

It could be the serious computer virus you mentioned in the second to last line there... Seriously, though, illegal operations are a part of windows. You could try upgrading to 2000 or XP to minimize those problems. Incorrectly uninstalled programs can cause hard to find problems. Make sure your virus dat files and engine are up to date.
You could also try reinstalling windows 98, if you can't upgrade.

I have reinstalled windows 98 several times.
And my anti virus program is on weekly scheduler.

SummerRose! It bites doesn't it? Hijack away.
I don't mind. It is very frustrating.

AzureAngel? I hate reformatting but maybe
I just have to. *sob* MaxMem? I haven't
heard of that. I am running rambooster to get
the maximum out of my memory.

heterotic! LMAO

 

[AzureAngel]

Debbie - Rambooster probably does the same thing. Don't sweat that.

And I KNOW that reformatting's a bitch. *Frowns.* But once you do it once or 3 times, it's actually a fast process and your computer will seem to run infinitely faster.

 

[heterotic]

Don't forget, the least intrusive file-sharing program is an IRC client, and an FTP client, plus you get props for being old-school.

Debbie... Have you called an exorcist?

 

[AzureAngel]

Yeah, but... that's all effort. *Laughs.* BTW, your nick amuses me to no end, Het. *Chuckles.* Oh, the rapier wit!

 

[Summery]

SummerRose! It bites doesn't it? Hijack away.
I don't mind. It is very frustrating.

Yes it is very frustrating! I think I may have figured out my problem. And, it's not from downloading bad porn.....or so it would seem at the moment.

Maybe we can catch up sometime this weekend on MSN Debbie if either of us can stay connected long enough.

 

[heterotic]

Why, thank you, AzureAngel. I was happy to help you past your 100 post mark, too