... And my Pc suddenly reboot :(

[DomainEmpire.com]

Nothing to do, this situation is going ahead since a long time now.
We've a Pentium 4 2800 with Win98SE installed and, at least one every 8/10 hours, the Pc suddenly reboots with no apparent reason.
Someone told me there's nothing to do because Win98 can't work on a so powerful machine but I don't agree with him because it works perfectly !

No idea on how permanently fix this problem ?
I've no virus/spyware/trojan, I'm sure of this considering McAfee is continually protecting my Pc and I scan it weekly with AdAware, SpyBot and a couple of other related softwares.

I'm a fun of Win98, no doubt ... and, the day I'll be forced to pass to a new verison, I'll keep forever one of my 2 Pcs with Win98 installed on it and with all my important files stored on it (without an Internet connection, of course).

Any ideas/hyphotesis would be highly appreciated, thanks.
I'm also interested in hearing about any additional utility which may help me to improve the potentialities of Win98, I appreciate a lot your help and suggestions.

[Mr Webname]

Check the processor fan inside the chassis - if it is slipping/faulty then your machine will be overheating and it will crash. I had this happen some months ago, the fan was slipping - changed the fan and problem solved. Could also require extra cooling even if the fan is working.

[DomainEmpire.com]

I'll try later with the help of a collaborator, thanks.

[UbErZ]

Windows 98se should work okay on any pc, but 98 does't like more then 370MB internal memory (but that should't be the problem even if it has more then that).

If it happens after a few hours, overheating could very well be the problem.

I have had computers reboot bc of bad drivers, faulty hardware, overheating, bad memory modules etc (Worked in a computer repair shop). But you can always do a clean windows 98se installation if nothing seems to work

[Duke]

I have the same problem - system intermittently freezing then releasing and occasionally rebooting on its own. I had recently added a second hard drive so though the power supply might be overextended or bad so just today I replaced the 300w Antec PS witha 400w unit but it didn't solve the problem. All fans are working so overheating wouldn't appear to be a problem. No fun!

[theparrot]

Heat would be the most obvious, if it is not that, next thing to do is run a comprehensive memory test.

[Mr Webname]

All fans are working so overheating wouldn't appear to be a problem.

Even if they are working they could be clogged with dust and therefore have their effectiveness reduced. Try cleaning them.

[Duke]

I just did a thorough cleaning of everything, reseated the memory - still same problems. I dud a system restore in WinXP back to before the problem started and that didn't help either. I build my own computers but I am stumped on this one. I do need to run a test on the two memory modules.

[UbErZ]

Or you can always try testing 1 memory module at a time. If you have no problems with 1 of them, the problem is clear.

[Duke]

Good idea UbErz - I have two 256mb RAM modules. I'll try them one at a time. It is an intermittent problem. A few hours ago it would hand or reboot every few miniutes. Now it has been working for several hours straight. Ran for 24 straight hours with no problems earlier this week. Then it will go nuts for a long stretch of time, even if you shutdown to make sure it has cooled off.

[UbErZ]

Duke

If you have XP you should check the following:

Control panel -> preformance and maintenance -> System

Then go to the "advanced" tab -> startup and recovery -> settings

There you can disable "automaticlly restart" on system fail. This setting is on standard when you install XP. If you disable this, your system will crash (maybe recoverable) but will not reboot by default.

Sorry for my bad english

[Duke]

Thanks UbErZ (and nothing wrong with your English). It actually just froze again (didn't reboot) as I was writing this note. I had taken one memory stick out, so after this crash I switched it back in so we will see if it crashes again on this one. If it crashes on both memory sticks I would say it is probably not the memory as odds are both would not go bad at the same time.

Also after I rebooted, a small fan over the Via North Bridge system controller chip next to the AMD 1600+ processor started making a noise and slowed to a crawl. The noise alerted me this time but if it has been doing that without making a noise that could very well be the culprit. It has run 24 hours a day for over 2 years so the bearings are probably going. I'll pick up a new one tomorrow and put it in. Meanwhile, I don't want to steal DomainEmpire's thread - how is your situation coming along Luigi? Maybe the ideas being tossed around will solve both of our problems.

[Duke]

Well it just crashed again - also rebooted itself on the next startup - so it happens with either memory chip in place. The fans all seem to be running including one on the video card that I overlooked before. If they are shutting down it wouldn't appear to be long enough to overheat. I have the case open and the second it faults I check the fans and they are all running. There are 7 fans in this system. I reinstalled WinXP last weekend when I put the second hard drive in and it screwed up the drive naming, assigned F to the new boot drive. It assigned C to the old boot drive that is now a slave. Never had that happen before but it doesn't seem to have affected things. That wouldn't cause it would it?

[Nameable]

Luigi- you should check your RAM. Does it crash more when you have a lot of programs running at once? Is there any pattern to the crashes? What are you usually doing when it crashes? If you just leave it on and go away for a while (several hrs) then come back will it have crashed, or do the crashes only happen when you're using the computer?

Same question to you, Duke - any pattern you can discern? I just had a northbridge fan go on an older box, it was about 4 years old, an ABIT mobo, athlon 800.

I can't remember which board it was, but the capacitors on one line of ABIT mobo's were known to leak. This could cause all kinds of weird problems. Since you seem to really know what you're doing, you've probably already tried looking up each piece of your hardware to see if there are any known issues -- if not, try that. This is one reason I stopped building boxes for other ppl. It's much easier to just tell them to call Dell when things like this come up.

[UbErZ]

</Quote>It's much easier to just tell them to call Dell when things like this come up.</Quote>

So true indeed

This will work for both cases:

If nothing of the above helps, you will have to rule out every piece of hardware at a time (until you only have videocard mainboard processor and ram and harddisk left). Just remove all extra parts etc, unplug cd drives. If the problem doesn't stop, then you could try replacing the videocard with a temoporary one etc.

And if you still can't find the problem, you should visit a computer repair shop (or buy a dell)

[DomainEmpire.com]

Today it didn't crash yet ... It's about 24hrs it's working fine but this means nothing :(
Yes, it crashes "only" when I'm using it but sometimes I'm working on a single program when it crashes so "no Ram issue", I think ... or I hope

Considering it crashes at least once per day but also that I've no way to show the problem to a technician, I'll await few other days to see what happens then I'll have no other choice that contacting a repair shop.

I've too many programs installed ... uninstalling them all whoud be a big damage for me but probably I'll try to work for few days on the second h.drive only (Win2000) and, if it will work fine for the whole time, I'll have no doubt that there's something wrong in my 98 ... This might be a wise solution to begin.

Thanks again for helping.

[Duke]

</Quote>It's much easier to just tell them to call Dell when things like this come up.</Quote>

So true indeed

This will work for both cases:

If nothing of the above helps, you will have to rule out every piece of hardware at a time (until you only have videocard mainboard processor and ram and harddisk left). Just remove all extra parts etc, unplug cd drives. If the problem doesn't stop, then you could try replacing the videocard with a temoporary one etc.

That's what I figured as well. There is no pattern to my problem. Can happen if I'm using the computer, not using it, etc. It can run for hours with no problem - then have constant problems for a couple of hours. My wife and daughter could each use a newer computer, so I think I will buy one component at a time until I find out what the cause was. All of the new components that I end up not needing (like the power supply I just bought) can go into a new machine for one of them. Don't know if it will help diagnose but this is a machine I built just over 2 years ago with these components:

Soyo SY-K7V Dragon Plus motherboard
AMD Athlon XP 1600+ processor
512MB Crucial DDR 2100 RAM (two 256MB sticks)
80GB Seagate hard drive (just put in) + 60GB Maxtor (original drive, now the slave)
CardExpert TwinView GEForce2 MX400 32MB Video Card
CD-RW Drive and DVD Drive
Runs on Win XP Home

Had put the new hard drive in last Saturday. Everything was running fine over the next couple of days as I reinstalled programs. Then late Monday night it started this behaviour where the system would freeze, then release for a few seconds, then freeze again (and repeat), Or in some cases it would completely freeze and not come back, or it would spontaneously reboot itself. I have run into a lot of PC problems since I bought my first one in the early 90's but I haven't hit this before.

[Mr Webname]

Also after I rebooted, a small fan over the Via North Bridge system controller chip next to the AMD 1600+ processor started making a noise and slowed to a crawl. The noise alerted me this time but if it has been doing that without making a noise that could very well be the culprit. It has run 24 hours a day for over 2 years so the bearings are probably going. I'll pick up a new one tomorrow and put it in.

Have you replaced this fan yet?

I have the case open and the second it faults I check the fans

I was always led to believe that the case acts to assist the fans by allowing air to be drawn through correctly so that may now be exacerbating the problem.

As it seems to have started with the introduction of the new drive have you tried removing it for a while to see what happens? Also it's weird that it reassigned the drive letters, I would want to make it change that in case it's causing some conflict somewhere. But my money is still on overheating - try a house fan close buy and see if it has any affect.

[Duke]

Haven't replaced that Northbridge fan yet. It hasn't slowed down again. I'm still going to pick up a replacement this afternoon. May get a new videocard too. I'm wondering if the processor itself could be going bad. The faults have been occurring whether the case is open or closed. I will try going back to just the original drive to see what happens. Nothing else has worked!

[Duke]

Just pulled the drive cage out to unplug the new HD and go back to the old one alone. When I did that I noticed that one end of the ribbon cable connecting to the new hard drive was not fully seated. Pushed it down and fired it back up as that could also be the cause. Would be great if it were something that simple. I should have a pretty good idea in the next couple of hours because it has been crashing every 10 minutes today.