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Help, I'm going crazy!
Could some of the wonderful computer wizards that frequent this place help me with a problem with my computer.
My computer frequently stops while I am working with it. The mouse and pointer still move however everything else stops working for 10-15 seconds. If I am typing text, it will not display what I have typed until it starts to work again, this drives me nuts! If it stops while on the internet and trying to access another server etc it usually loses contact and I have to "reload". I have run Norton and found 2 viruses one which was fixed and one, (Happy99) which has been quarantined, I have also run scandisk and reloaded windows 99 to no avail. Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated. |
Baron
From the symptoms you describe, it sounds like your hard drive has gone into sleep mode. These power saving modes can be changed in the Bios settings and the Control Panel me thinks. I could be wrong but its worth a look to see how quickly, after in-activity you hard drive is going into doze mode. Wiggly |
Wiggly Amp has a point. Power-Saving features can cause this, but so can the "type-ahead" buffer in Windows. You might want to check the following:
(1) Go to the Command (MS-DOS) prompt. (2) Enter the command CD\ (3) Now enter the command EDIT CONFIG.SYS See if there's a line which reads STACKS=x,y where x an y are numbers. If you don't see this statement, create one which reads STACKS=9,256 This worked quite effectively in speeding up typing. Wiggly's suggestion about power-saving is also worth following up on. Unless you're using a lap-top, the power-saving features are fairly pointless on a desktop running from the mains. Another idea which springs to mind is to check for any hardware conflicts. If you go Start -> Settings -> Control Panel -> System. Click the Device Manager tab and see if any devices are shown with a yellow dot containing an exclamation mark. These could also cause one or two problems. ------------------ Carpet Rodent: The politically correct name for a RUG-RAT |
You can get this problem on Notebooks, especially the ones with a swappable CDROM/Floppy drive as the PC will try and find the Floppy drive occasionally, as it's not plugged in, it takes about 10 secs to discover that.
There are a few fixes for this (I can't remember all of them!) One of them is to clear the documents list (recent files). Another is to clear the Start Menu's Run Command list. Remove all PIF files that point to the floppy drive. Remove LocalLoadHigh=1 from your MSDOS.SYS file. There is a help sheet on the web about this, but I've lost the address, Oooops! Ah ha! Here it is: www.annoyances.org/win95/win95ann6.html#07 That's your lot! ------------------ 400 Hertz but DC is easy |
It sounds to me like your virus removal software didn't quite quarantine or remove the "happy99.exe" virus. Click here to download the Happy99.Worm removal tool from the Symantec site. According to Symantec, here is also the manual way to remove the virus if it is still there:
All file renaming and deletions can be performed via Windows Explorer. 1. Delete WINDOWS\SYSTEM\SKA.EXE. 2. Delete WINDOWS\SYSTEM\SKA.DLL. 3. In the WINDOWS\SYSTEM\ directory, rename WSOCK32.DLL to WSOCK32.BAK. 4. In the WINDOWS\SYSTEM\ directory, rename WSOCK32.SKA to WSOCK32.DLL. 5. Delete the downloaded file, usually named HAPPY99.EXE. Windows prevents you from doing steps 3 and 4 above if the machine is still connected to the Internet. The file "windows\system\wsock32.dll" is used whenever the machine is connected to the Internet (through dial-up or LAN connection). If you are using dial-up connection (i.e. America Online), you need to do the following: 1. Terminate internet connection. 2. Delete WINDOWS\SYSTEM\SKA.EXE. 3. Delete WINDOWS\SYSTEM\SKA.DLL. 4. In the WINDOWS\SYSTEM\ directory, rename WSOCK32.DLL to WSOCK32.BAK. 5. In the WINDOWS\SYSTEM\ directory, rename WSOCK32.SKA to WSOCK32.DLL. 6. Delete the downloaded file, usually named HAPPY99.EXE. If you are connected to Internet through LAN (i.e. in the office or cable modem), you need to do the following: 1. On the Windows taskbar, click START > Shut Down > Restart in DOS mode. 2. At the DOS promt type CD \windows\system. 3. Type RENAME WSOCK32.DLL WSOCK32.BAK. 4. Type RENAME WSOCK32.SKA WSOCK32.DLL. 5. Type DEL SKA.EXE. 6. Type DEL SKA.DLL. Erik. |
I had the same problem, however it was a lot easier to figure out... added more memory and away she went!
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You can try removing Microsoft fastfind from your startup folder.
If you've had anything on a diskette it scans for it periodically and can cause what you describe. So far though I'd lean towards the 'hard disk whent to sleep' |
This is just general advice, not knowing your setup.
Computers often slow down and the hard disk thrashes when trying to write to disk. This can often be caused by: a. a fairly full HDD b. too small a swap file c. not enough memory (RAM) d. too many progs running in the background (look at your system tray for an idea) e. anti-virus software (YES!) f. inefficent settings in startup files g. multi-tasking TOO much There are many more. If you supply as much info as you can about your machine - HDD, RAM, OS, model/speed, percentage of HDD used, contents of startup folder, typical use of machine etc., I'll give you some specific ideas to try - or e-mail me. Be safe. ------------------ PistonBroke |
I'd also go along with HDD going to sleep. I'm not totally convinced the MS have got these power-saving routines down pat. My computer sometimes crashed totally when it was trying to wake the HDD up. I switched off this option and, scorchio! no more crashes. It has to be said, though, that I was running the SETI@home screensaver, so maybe the buffer got filled up.... Hmmm hadn't thought of that before...
TTFN |
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