Computer ?

Jim Landers · From: Spokane, Wash.

My computer is driving me nuts,(short ride) it just seems to freeze up and won't do anything.

When I'm typing it just stops. Sometimes for only a couple of seconds, but sometimes it'll last for a minute or more. When it finally starts again, the letters that were typed while it was froze will appear all at once.

This happens all the time, not just when I'm typing. It does the same thing when I'm trying to scroll a page, or even when a page is loading. When this happens everything stops, even the mouse.

Does anybody have any ideas on what could be causing this?........It has done this twice while I was typing this post.

Jim

Jim Smith · From: Midlothian, TX, USA

I used to have this problem and Microsoft Office's Find Fast was the culprit.

Your computer will hang while Find Fast searches your disk(s) for .doc files, which takes many seconds. If you do have MS Office, go to Control Panel - Find Fast. Highlight each index, then do Index - Delete Index. In fact I suggest that everyone do this. How often do you need to search your disk for documents? Hope this helps.

Steve Feldman · From: Central MA USA

Jim - Close down everything running on the system that you don't need. If you're running Win98, try going to Start>Run, and type MSCONFIG. Get in there and uncheck the things that you do not need to have running automatically at startup. You'd be surprised at all the crap the MS has you running that is hogging system resouces.

Steve (the Commie B*stard)

Jack Stoner · From: Kansas City, MO

You don't say what kind of machine you have and how much memory you have. If you're running WIN98, 64MB of memory is the minimum necessary to comfortably run WIN98 (128MB is preferred). Some Compaq's had a problem with DMA on the Hard Drive and they issued an alert to disable the DMA on those models (4808 was one I remember).

Only have open the programs necessary. That will help, e.g. while on line you don't need a wordprocessor open, etc. Also as someone else mentioned check the startup file and take out unnecessary startup items, such as RealPlayer (it does not have to be in the startup to work properly), etc.

Jim Landers · From: Spokane, Wash.

Jack, my computer is an AMD-K6/2 400/96/6.4/45x/56 and I'm running WIN98 2nd edition. The machine is only a couple of weeks old, and I don't have hardly any extra programs on it. The only things I've added to it are a printer and scanner.

Jim, I was going to do what you suggested, but I don't have MS Office or a Find Fast.

Steve, I did do what you suggested but there really is'nt anything else to get rid of on the Start Up menu. I had already taken several things off of it and what's left probably needs to be there.

If it is'nt the amount of things running on start-up, do any of you guys have any ideas as to what else it may be. I'm really knew to computers, so even if it's something pretty basic I would'nt know what to look for...........Thanks, Jim

Everett Cox · From: Marengo, OH, USA (deceased)

Jim-- Another possibility: Windows uses the hard disk to temporarily store memory contents when it needs more than is currently available. (I'm running Win95 but 98 will be similar.) The default is for Windows to 'manage' things - which means it will allocate and re-allocate the disk space it wants even while you're trying to work.

In ControlPanel-System-Performance-Virtual Memory, specify that YOU will manage and set BOTH the min and max to the SAME value. Maybe Jack can recommend a reasonable size. The old rule was aprox 2.5 times actual memory - in your case, 200 to 250MB.

When BOTH values are the same, Windows will set up the virt-mem file ONCE rather than adding/deleting in real time. --Everett

Jack Stoner · From: Kansas City, MO

Everett, the constant disk access that WIN95 has seems to be gone in WIN98. They apparently figured out they didn't need to do that. My older machine had WIN95 and 80MB of memory and it still had a lot of hard disk activity. My new machine with WIN98 has very little.

However, I hate to tell anyone to screw with the default or automatic system settings as it can screw up other system settings.

A lot of the slow or frequent "interruption" type of occurances can be minimized with additional memory and freeing up system resources. If you have less than 80% system resources free at startup chances are you will encounter some type of problem.

If you listen to Microsoft their "minimum" hardware/memory requirements for WIN95 are a 486 machine with either 8 or 16MB of memory. WIN95 will work on a machine like that but you won't be able to do much. Where I worked, we didn't get reliable WIN95 operation til we went to Pentium's and minimum 64MB of memory (our machines had a Novel window and a 3270 emulation window always open plus drivers for a Token Ring card).

Bill Crook · From: Goodlettsville, TN , Spending my kid's inheritance

Jim.....

You stated that you were running "Win98, 2nd Edition".

My experience with Win98, 2nd Edition was:
Just as soon as I installed it, The computer went to heck in a handbasket, I even did a complete clean of the c: drive,(that is, run fdisk and all) still had all of the problems you are haveing,and more. Went back to the Original "WIN98", system hasn't acted up the first time sience. I'm not stateing that version 2 is a bad O/S but sometimes different computers (mine,for instance) just dosen't seem to run right with it. Tried "Office 2000" also, went back to "Office 97" because I liked the interface better.

Everett Cox · From: Marengo, OH, USA (deceased)

Jack-- Thanks for the info about virtual memory Win95 vs Win98. From the system description, didn't really think that was the solution, anyhow.

Another forumite has, along with other things, the same kinds of symptoms running the original version of Win98. Maybe it's not just a 'Second Edition' problem??? --Ev

Jim Landers · From: Spokane, Wash.

I really appreciate all the suggestions you guys are giving. I have tried just about all of them except the virtual memory one, and I was going to give that one a shot until I seen Jacks post.

I have been messing with this thing all day today and I got the start-up up to 88%, but it's still doing the same thing. It might have made it a little better, but it's hard to say for sure. It's still doing the same thing, and I'm not sure which way to go from here. Anybody got anymore ideas?...

Jim

Jack Stoner · From: Kansas City, MO

One other thing I've just thought about. If this is happening primarily on line, it could be that there's files that have been placed on your computer by some site(s) that are sending back statistical info. I down loaded a "free" solitaire game that wound being ad supported software and everytime I went on line it was updating the ads that popped up during the game. Some of the Active X controls that are installed on the machine will do similar things. You will see extra activity on the PC and on the data link even when you are not doing anything.

I downloaded a program called OPTOUT which will search for "spyware" and remove it. I think I downloaded it from ZDNET but here is a link to their site http://grc.com/optout.htm

Optout won't remove all the garbage but it will get rid of the ad stuff. However, once you remove the ad garbage the ad supported software will no longer run.

One irony, a lot of the "freebie" software that ZDnet has available is the ad supported stuff. They make the ad supported stuff available but then make a program available to defeat it....

Bobby Lee · From: Cloverdale, California, USA

Microsoft FindFast is installed by default when you install MS Office or MS Word. You have to do a very careful custom install to avoid it. It really sucks! I think you can delete it with Add-Remove Programs (found in the Settings/Control Panel folder).

Jim Smith · From: Midlothian, TX, USA

I haven't figured out how not to install Find Fast, nor how to uninstall it afterwards. My suggestions above do work. I've done it on my computer, and everyone at work does it on theirs as well. Now if we can just figure out how to keep MSDEV's compiler from taking over the whole CPU, other than adding a second processor.

Jack Stoner · From: Kansas City, MO

Find Fast doesn't show up in the list of progrms in the add/remove programs on my PC. However, I have MS Office Startup disabled (no check mark) in the startup (MSCONFIG), that might take care of it.

[This message was edited by Jack Stoner on 03 June 2000 at 03:34 PM.]

Jim Smith · From: Midlothian, TX, USA

I don't think so Jack, I tried that a long time ago. All this info about Find Fast came from one of the Ziff-Davis PC magazines a few years ago, back when Win 95 first came out. I've cleared the Find Fast list on every computer ever since and have never had the hanging problems that I had previously.

Jack Stoner · From: Kansas City, MO

I did some more checking and Find Fast is not installed on my machine. My Control Panel has a Find Fast icon in it but if I try to lauch it, I get an error message that It can't find it.

I went back to my MSWord97 installation and it's an option when installing MSWord97 and apparently I didn't install it.

Jim Smith · From: Midlothian, TX, USA

Thanks Jack, apparently I didn't dig deep enough for the option to not install Find Fast.

joe wright · From: Jackson, Michigan

I may have missed it but I didn't see anyone mention the addition of ram and shutting off virtual memory. With 304 megs in this machine, my hard drive(s) has system on one and data on another and programs run directly in memory.

The things that slow down a Windows machine sound the same as on macs, only with different names. I learned some windows stuff just reading this thread! Always wondered what you could use that was equivalent to my extensions manager. That takes care of all the little programs that load at startup. You can control them and make up sets that are friendly. At startup I can hold down the space bar and the extensions manager comes up. I can then choose midi or printing, etc. That can eliminate a lot of headaches.

I shut off the mac's Fast Finds, etc. (anything that indexes the hard drive) They slow you down.

My Set-up:
G3/450 256k (video)
G3/300 196k (printing)
9600/300 112k (Music)
8500/180 304k (internet)
HP 2500CM
Ethernet 100T network (built in:-))

thanks for the windows info...joe

Marco Schouten · From: Amsterdam, The Netherlands

If you are using MS Word, you can try to disable grammar checking during typing. You find this under extra>options>spelling and grammar.
On some machines it can slow them down a lot.

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Steelin' Greetings
Marco Schouten

Bill Nauman · From: Cresco,Pa,USA

Jim ...I get those problems too especially while downloading something...I do clear my temperary internet files and cookies constantly and find that it helps speed up everything I only have 48 megs of Ram and am running windows 98 As has been said above ...get rid of anything you dont use.
Also compact your pfc if you are on aol..Bill in Vegas

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Graham · From: Marmora, Ontario, Canada

This may sound strange to some of you, but my wife's new computer was acting very similar to this one of Jim's. Turns out the problem was a ribbon cable partially blocking the cpu cooling fan intake, causing the chip to run hot. Re-routing the cable away from the fan cleared up the problem.

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Rebel™
ICQ 614585
http://users.interlinks.net/rebel/steel/steel.html

Jon Light · From: Saugerties, NY

Question, Jim--does this problem happen only when you are online?

Jim Landers · From: Spokane, Wash.

Bill N., no I'm not on AOL. I did clean everything off that I could, and it increased the speed a lot, but it did'nt stop it from locking up.

Graham, I was begining to wonder if it might be something like you said, but I'm trying everything I can before I take it into the repair shop.

Jon, no it happens all the time, and being on or off-line don't seem to make any difference.

Update-this morning I tried equalizing the Virtual Memory like Everett suggested. I was assured by a friend of mine that works with computers that it would'nt hurt to give it a try. If it did'nt work or caused problems we could go back to the original settings.

Well anyway, I set the minimum and the maximum both at 250 and it seems to have helped a lot. It is still locking up occasionally, but not near as often, and when it does it only lasts a few seconds. Before I did this it would last as long a 2 or 3 minutes and sometimes even longer.

I'll try it this way for a couple of days, and let you know if it keeps working. I sure hope it does. Thanks again, Jim

Jack Stoner · From: Kansas City, MO

One thing I had forgot about, that I shouldn't have is the video. I saw a reference to this in the local paper's computer problem Q&A column and it refreshed my memory.

The video can cause all sorts of problems such as the screen "freezing" randomly, cursor unresponsive randomly, etc. If you don't have the latest video drivers for your machine get them and see if that helps.
You can also check the video acceleration and maybe slow it down slighty to help.
RIGHT Click on My Computer and then LEFT click on Properties. Then select Performance and then Graphics. Normally the slider is all the way to the right (full acceleration) however, you may want to try a slightly slower (move slider to the left) and then try it. If this is the problem it may take several tries before the optimum setting is reached.

Jim Landers · From: Spokane, Wash.

Well I thought I had the problem solved for a few days there, but it started all over again yesterday. It actually never did stop happening, but it was doing it not near as often, and when it did freeze up it was for only a few seconds at a time. If it had stayed that way it would have been O.K.

But yesterday it started freezing up again and was worse than ever. It would totally lock up for 4 or 5 minutes at a time. So this evening I have put everything back to their original settings and it is doing a little better now, but it is not good.

I have tried everything that has been suggested here on this thread except Jack's last reference to the video drivers, and I'll check into that in the morning.

Thanks again for all the suggestions, and if you have anymore speak up. I'm willing to try just about anything.

Jim

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