Crash # 6? I'm losing count

I have only slightly read through your post but may have some tips.
First I wasn't clear if your computer came with XP installed or not, but if it didn't then that may be one of the problems due to your amount of 256 MB RAM being used up by it and other applications that always needlessly run in the background in Windows or other programs it loads. (Animating desktop icons, etc.). I only have 128MB RAM in W98se and turned everything off in order for it to have room to load AV, FW etc without creating a big swap file.

Static electricity from your body when working inside the case can cause problems too, and a little wrist band that costs about $4 will keep you grounded to the case to prevent problems. When it comes to memory chips they are highly sensitive to it and can easily be damaged by it.

Bios: L2 cache I would leave on. I do recall turning off some of my shadow & caching trying to TS some of my hardware problems, but not sure if they were left off.

Things I've run into or tips you might try:
1. Turn off all things you don't need that run in the background of windows (animated desktop icons, screensavers running automatically, drive maintenance, etc...2001 was the last time I did any of this). Even the system scheduler to run other programs uses memory to know when to run the programs. Mine is turned off and I always manually check for updates to AV, etc. religeously and do my own scan disk and defragmenting of my drive partitions. Updates I get often, but scanning and defragmenting is done sometimes weekly or monthly and usually any time before and after I uninstall or install a program on a partition. Some times I play over kill and other times under kill, but with a lot of hard drive room for my swap file I haven't run into any problems from it.

Also in Add/Remove>Windows setup remove anything you don't need. You can add these back later if you need them with the cd.
Off=no check mark (example of what I have off and the computer runs with, single computer not networked to another computer physically)
Accessibilty, Internet Tools, Multilanguage Support, Online Services, Web for TV are fully off.
Accessories: Briefcase, Imaging, Windows Scripting Host (XP may need it?)
Communication: Dail-up ATM support, Dail-Up Server, Direct Cable connection, Hyper Terminal, MS Chat, Netmeeting, Phone Dialer (I don't make phone calls out on my computer anymore or fax if it uses this-not sure since I don't have fax set up either), Virtual Private Networking
Desktop Themes: all off except for Support.
Multimedia: Shockwave Flash, Multimedia Sound Schemes
System Tools: Disk compression tools, Group Policies, Net Watcher
Restart for changes to take effect.

2. Compare the size of your swap file to the size of the hard drive it is on free space to see if it has plenty of room to grow & shrink in as it is used. If there is not a lot of free space this can cause problems, since when other programs run if they are installed on the same drive use some of the space while they are open also. Check the specifications for XP to see how much RAM and hard drive space it needs (for swap expecially), then check the same for other programs you use in the system tray for Ram usage. Ram added up tells how much it will use up before it makes a swap file which the default is to shrink & grow as needed in 98 if I recall right. Main thing is the swap file needs plenty of room and if set to static (not shrink & grow) needs to be set high enough if you are out of physical RAM.

Cleaning out you IE cache & history, OE File>Compress all folders, and clearing up the C:\WINDOWS\TEMP folder often helps. Overkill I do it nightly. The temp folder will not let you delete files that are in use (ZoneAlarm puts one there you can't delete). Usually what I do unless I know it is a file I don't need, I take them and add them to a dated zip file I place off of my OS partition, then delete them, that way if they are needed I have a back up in a location that won't interfere with the drive room the swap file is created on. I say delete but what I really do is use an eraser program (writes numbers over the data in the file so it can never be recovered), but usually I test it to see if the delete option works before I place them in a folder to erase them to make sure no program is using them. I learned the hard way not to erase links because it erased the folder it was linked to, so putting links into a folder and then erasing the folder prevented this from happening and have shot myself in the foot erasing ones I didn't want to when I was tired.

Go to grc.com to pick up tools that turn dangerous things off in XP you may not need that run in the background.

I updated my BIOS when going from W95 to W98 and it didn't work so I had to go back to a earlier Bios version...tip never upgrade it unless some new hardware is not working with the older version is what I have heard.

After adding a ATA-100 PCI card to run my hard drive off of for faster speeds I kept having start up problems (not finding a hard drive) until I reseated all the cards. The same occurred any time after I added any other cards or reseated any of them.

Check the device manager for any problems devices in it. Before trying to remove and reinstall any of these I generally make sure scandisk & defrag is run before hand, and it is advisable to have a backup of you OS partition to fall back on (I often lack in this though since it wouldn't hurt to reinstall now since I have been up since 2001 and it would clear the registry fully of all of it's trash and left over dlls & files programs leave behind in the windows folder).

May not help, but food for thought.

 

great advice

WOW -- thanks for all the time and effort you put into your response. And you don't even know me. I copied it all out and will check out each step "in" my computer when I'm offline.

Yep -- new computer, Windows XP home all installed.

Only went in the case ONE TIME and that was to change memory sticks. I did all I could too "uncharge" myself.

Actually, I never learned how to go and change anything here anyway.

I've been good about this from the beginning I think and have changed a lot of system settings (?) from automatic to manual or even disabled them (good old black viper and his advice)

Hmmm - don't think I've heard that advice before

How do I do that?

I think I do this regularly with some of my spyware tools (regcleaner, etc).'

Hmmm - maybe I'll go back to the older version. But I know that's not the problem anyway.

I do this often.

How do I do this?

 

Need all the AMMO I can muster!

Attention, Majors, Corporals, Minors ... any other facts or comments I can use as AMMO?

 

WOW -- thanks for all the time and effort you put into your response. And you don't even know me.
Welcome, always willing to try and help but I'm no expert by far. Just learned a lot along the way from reading info at sites & having problems. Also I consider everyone to be a friend and worth helping, until they prove other wise.

Yep -- new computer, Windows XP home all installed.
Should be working okay then unless it was a model like mine. First 3 months I re-installed W95 several times trying to trouble shoot problems it had with hardware, programs, device manager, crashes, etc. only in the end to find out I had the wrong recovery CD (installed W95, hardware drivers and other programs) was the problem. Mine was a display model so they reinstalled the OS before they gave it to me and mistakenly gave me the wrong CD's to go with it. Even if yours is not a display model (someone bought it & returned it) or even from the factory, if you have the wrong recovery CD (one that installs XP) or a wrong one was used to install XP before you got it, it can cause all kinds of wierd problems like you are having but with Windows still working. Verify with the company you have the right recovery CD (CD should have a version number on it) for your computer model. We checked the color of my CD which was right in the beginning but took 3 months to finally have someone discover it was the wrong version number. This won't be the problem if unlike mine you have a full MS version of XP from Dell that doesn't have any of their drivers etc. on it. Mine came without a full version of W95 on it with a lot of IBM drivers and other programs on it, thus it was called an OEM (original equipment ???) and not a full MS version of W95.

Only went in the case ONE TIME and that was to change memory sticks. I did all I could too "uncharge" myself.
Once is all it takes, but I have done the same before I bought a grounding strap and didn't harm it.

.. Bios: L2 cache I would leave on. ......
Actually, I never learned how to go and change anything here anyway.
Shouldn't be a problem with a new computer unless a wrong CD was used to install the OS or you installed new hardware.

... Add/Remove>Windows setup remove anything you don't need. You can add these back later if you need them with the cd.......... Hmmm - don't think I've heard that advice before
Another tip from a site a long time ago. Not sure what is needed in XP, but know it's loaded with more than 98.

... 2. Compare the size of your swap file to the size of the hard drive it is on free space to see if it has plenty of room to grow & shrink in as it is used. .. How do I do that?
Use Start Button>Find>Find files & folders. Named: *.swp Look in: drive letter that has you OS unless you have moved the swap file, then use that location. This tells you how big your swap file "WIN386.SWP" is, though it may have a different name in XP, think it did in 95 but I'm not sure. If you want to repeat this to keep a check on it at the top select File>Save Search. A file called "Files named @.swp" will be put on the desktop. Right click on it and select rename to call it OutOfRamFile or something. If it is not being used then it's size will be 0KB, if its use due to lack of RAM then it's size will be bigger than 0.
Now click on My Computer (W98, not sure of what it is on XP but should show all the partitions (i.e. drive letters) like your floppy drive, CDRom drive, and hard drive partiton letters. At the top select View>Details which should show you your free space and total space for each partition on your hard drive. The one to check the free space on is the one with your OS (windows folder) in it. If I recall right (probably not) 98 needs at least 100 mb of free space to operate right (not sure if that includes or excludes the swap file but XP probably requires more space since it requires more RAM to begin with).

... Cleaning out you IE cache & history ..
I think I do this regularly with some of my spyware tools (regcleaner, etc).
To make sure for IE:
Offline use your programs you think clears these.
Use Start Button>Find>Find files & folders. Named: Internet Look in: drive letter that has you OS unless you have moved these files, then use that location.
A folder named: "Temporary Internet Files" should appear.
Right click on it and use find again. In IE6.0 SP1 only 4 files should be found (really 1 folder and 2 files). Here I would add Named: *.* & use find now so that you can use File>Save Search so this find file will be put on your desktop (called "All Files") and then to re-check this later all you have to do is click Find Now again so show if it still only has 4 files found at the bottom status area.

To manually do this if these programs don't do it.
Start Button>Settings>Control Panel
Look for Internet Options and right click on it, then select create shortcut. Right click on the shortcut and drag it to the desktop, selecting move here.
When you click on this link Under Temporary Internet Files select "Delete Files" and under History select "Clear History". Then when you click on you saved find file from above & use find again you should get the above results.
You can right click the All Files, select Rename and rename it IE Clear2, and repeat with the shortcut made to Internet Options to name it IE Clear1. That way you can use IE Clear1 to clear the files and IE Clear2 to make sure they are cleared.

I do something similar with Outlook Express to make sure its folder doesn't need to be compressed in order for it to release space deleted files you no longer see in it but which is still being reserved for in the dbx file to be released. I've renamed and moved my files, but if you do a find on *.dbx it should come back with Inbox.dbx, etc. Note what folder it is in and make a shortcut to it on the desktop and rename the file to OE Clear. Open this link and note the size of some of the dxb files and close the folder. Then open OE and use File>Folder>Compact all folders (if you have never done this then I would do one at a time since it will take a while for it to recover the space by clicking on Inbox and then select File>Folder>Compact, when done click on the next folder Outbox, etc until they are all done). Close OE and open your shortcut to its folder you made and compare the size of it now to what it was before to see how much room has been freed up. With no emails in my folders the Folders.dbx is a little bigger than all the rest of the dbx's which are 59KB.

Go to grc.com to pick up tools that turn dangerous things off in XP you may not need that run in the background.
Hmmm - maybe I'll go back to the older version. But I know that's not the problem anyway.
XP makes a computer more like a Unix system, leaving raw sockets open and everything on (if I recall right in order to act like a server) that makes it easy for hackers to over take your machine unless you know enough to guard it well. Steve's site explains it very well and provides tools to easily turn these problems off (or back on). I didn't read about it too much since XP uses up too much RAM for mine to handle and I don't need want to have such an un-secure OS that I would have to read and know a lot more about in how to protect it.
It's a rampant problem because my firewall is taking tons more hits than it ever did before XP came out from over taken computers just like Steve said would happen.

and it is advisable to have a backup of you OS partition to fall back on ,..
How do I do this? Wish I knew . 98 had a backup program you can use to do it though it doesn't work great by backing up everything, but I don't know about XP. I won Drive Image (before it sold to Symantec/Norton) in a sweepstakes that I use that makes a complete image of the drive (thus works better than the MS one that left out the swap file and files in use). I have heard the newer version wasn't as good as the one I got and Symatec's support has gone down hill big time so I wouldn't suggest getting it. I gave Arconis True Image a test drive for a external HD I bought, but didn't buy it since I found out how to make Drive Image work instead. Do a search on this sites program section on image or backup will bring up a lot of stuff though wait for someone with XP to let you know if it has something that does it. Main thing here is not to save the backup on the partition (partition=drive letter) that has your OS, since when you do a recovery (reinstall XP) that partition gets reformatted and all that is on it is lost (if things still work that way in XP).

My air conditioner is out, so I probably won't be back on until tomorrow night if storms don't keep me off in order to get it and other things around here done. I will check back when I get back on to see if you have any other questions.

 

ID 10 T error

That's one good piece of advice -- thanks

 

FYI: M = Manufacturer

I hear what you're saying but this was after crash #6 so I consider it a minor point but...

Great - I'll do it soon.

Oh, good advice, I have OE too.

What? Mr. Answer Man?

Well, maybe that won't matter cause Cowboy told me about a new ERROR that I may have to use on the OEM called DELL before they use it on me