Aaaarrgh!!! Computer stalling.

[Chickenhawk66]

I would appreciate your help with this. Pentium 3, W98SE. Nothing new installed recently.

For around the last month my computer stalls at irregular intervals - ie, it stops whatever it is doing, usually but not always when on the net, and renders the mouse inoperable. I am unable to use Ctl-Alt-Del at all. This can happenly hourly or minute-ly as it were.
The only thing I can to is laboriously reset the computer. When I do so, and reconnect to the net, I usually have to find the page I was on over again, ie I cannot just go to History and get the page there because there will be no record of recent pages visited.
Note: the stalls can happen when I am not on the net.
I have an up to date anti virus and I have used msconfig etc and StartupCPL to see what is running: nothing unusual.

I have opened the case to blow out the dust. The fan seems ok.

Any ideas? Or is this normal for a 2 year old puter? Is it on the way out?

Any ideas gratefully received. I know from experience one of you has the answer!!

[MasterGreen]

CH - I would go for a memory problem first - as it is the easiest to cure, most likely etc.

Try this :

Pull your memory simms out (or unclip - whatever) and replace. If you have a pair or more, swap the positions around. Be sure to use the same motherboard slots though.

If this cures the problem, great - you just had a dirty / high resistance contact.

Whatever the outcome down load this memory test from :

Memtest (http://www.memtest86.com)

This produces a boot floppy and is totally independant of WINDows or whatever. Run this full cycle and it will tell all. In fact thinking about it - I would do this first.

The next place to look is your power supply. Local resources will vary, but if you are not upto a ps swap - I bet you know someone who is.

Hope this helps

MG

[Chickenhawk66]

Thanks MG.

I unzipped and ran Memtest as you suggest. Results in Test 7 indicate 6 errors in 4 addresses in 123.7 and 123.8 MB.

Sadly I am completely clueless about computers and I am unsure of the significance of this.

Is the solution to replace the RAM? How is this done?

[MasterGreen]

CH - Looks like you have a bit or two of flaky RAM then.

First question : How much RAM have you got in there and how many "slabs". To expand :

When you open the "box" and look inside - how many memory "slabs / sticks / thingies" have you got ?

How much memory is there - it says this on startup.

Let's have the answer to that and I will get back to you ...

MG

[BRL]

I had a very similar thing happen to mine recently. what i ended up doing was getting rid of some of the stuff thats to the left of the clock down on the right hand corner. I can't remember how i done it, i will look for the thread in a mo' and post the link here, maybe that will help. It cured my problem. Good luck.

Here is the link (http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=65656)