I need help with my computer crashing.
I've an AMD Athalon XP w/504MB RAM running Win98 Second Edition.
The computer often crashes (no mouse response, no cntrl-alt-del) after
startup finished. Even pressing the reset button sometimes does not
work and I have to shut all power off. Subsequent restart crashes so
early that my monitor sometimes has "no signal" display, or it never
makes it through the Scandisk. Repeated power-off/power-on gets
eventually gets me through startup and working ok, but it may take up
to 6 attempts in 20 minutes or more.
I've reinstalled windows, replaced the hard drive, re-seated the
memory, but problem continues. I get the feeling that the computer may
be crashing until it "warms up." I can only guess that maybe there's
something tempermental with the motherboard? I'm at wits end and I
think my only solution is to can the entire box and buy a new one.
Any ideas are appreciated.
Thank you.
-Tony
Bill Watt - 29 Jul 2005 06:24 GMT
>I need help with my computer crashing.
>I've an AMD Athalon XP w/504MB RAM running Win98 Second Edition.
[quoted text clipped - 15 lines]
>Thank you.
>-Tony
Tony,
It may be a marginal or loose connection that only makes contact
when heat expands it. Check the drive connectors and others on the
motherboard and power supply.
Regards,
Bill Watt
Computer Help and Information http://home.ptd.net/~bwatt/
Ron Badour - 29 Jul 2005 14:29 GMT
I recently tried to work on an XP box that would not boot, its symptoms were
similar to yours. The user continued trying to make it boot thinking it was
a power switch problem and what he ended up doing was ruining the computer.
It was a bad power supply and he eventually killed it, the hard drive, the
floppy drive and either the mobo or CPU (I quite troubleshooting at that
point as the repairs would have been more than a new computer).
My advice is if you plan on keeping the box, quit trying to make it boot and
get it into a repair shop.

Signature
Regards
Ron Badour, MS MVP for W98
Tips: http://home.satx.rr.com/badour
Knowledge Base Info:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?pr=kbinfo
>I need help with my computer crashing.
> I've an AMD Athalon XP w/504MB RAM running Win98 Second Edition.
[quoted text clipped - 15 lines]
> Thank you.
> -Tony