Computer stall help?

[mahalo]

Hey, I was wondering if anyone knows how to fix this...

My computer seems to stall whenever it loads/is working hard. It used to not do this. It is a pentium 3 450 with 128 megs of RAM.

The mouse movements stagger, if that makes sense at all. I tried uninstalling the new software, but it still does this. I tried defragging and scanning the hard drive.

I am stuck. Any suggestions?

[BADFlSH]

Does it usually do this stuff after you have had it running for awhile? What OS are you using?

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[speedracer120]

Check your available resources. That maybe the problem

[Crunch It Now]

do you have a lot of programs running in the background? like antivirus software, or scheduled backups or something like that?

[Crunch It Now]

also - how much free space is on your hard drive? maybe the swap file isnt getting enough room

[mahalo]

Thanks for the replies guys.

Here is some more info about my computer:

This ALWAYS happens. In fact, it is even worse when I have just re-booted up the computer.

I am using Win 98 second edition

My available resources is, right now, at 62% for system and user and 67% for GDI. Now, I am sure that this changes as I run more programs, and I will keep an eye on that. But what if the system resources are low, what would I do to fix that?

I do have Mcfee virus scan and real player running in the background, but this still happens even when I close the programs

My C: drive has over 8 GB free.

This is a pain in the ass. I really appreciate everyone's help, and any more suggestions would be REALLY appreciated.

Thank

[BADFlSH]

Well, you've got me. All I can tell you is that if it is system rescources it is probably the result of some program that you run whenever you start up. The program uses up some of the resources and then when you closes it, it doesn't free them up like it should. I think the place I would start if I were you is, go to the start menu and do run and then type in msconfig. Under the startup tab try unchecking different things, then restart and see what happens. You may even want to uncheck everything and see how it works with just windows stuff running. This isn't necessarily the same as just closing all of the programs and seeing how the computer runs because if one of the programs has a memory leak or something it wont free up its resources when you close it but by removing it from start up it will prevent it from using those resources in the first place. I will let you know if I think of anything else. Good luck.

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[This message has been edited by BADFlSH (edited 05-25-2000).]

[Speedfreak]

I had a problem similar to this for a long time. My system would stall after playing certain games, even just for a little while. I could play UT all day long and it wouldn't stall, but I played Q3 aor a little while and it wouls stall. Some games would stall right away. Well, After a LONG time I found out that it was a memory conflict. I have a BH6 and 3 128MB Samsung dimms. 2 of the dimms are -g8 and the other is -gh. for some reason my mobo didn't like haveing all of them in there. So I finnaly traded (for now) with my friend. He has one 128mb Samsung -gh. I ended up trading with him, so now I have mine and his -gh and he has my 2 -g8s because I could not get three dimms (in ANY combination) to work in my system.

So he is happy to have 256mb of ram for awhile (until I get my other system) and I am happy to be able to play games without it stalling. I barely noticed a difference with only 256mb instead of 384mb, so I really don't care. http://www.gotapex.com/ubb/smile.gif


So... if you haven't tried moving your memory to a different slot, then do so.

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[mahalo]

Thanks speedfreak,

The thing is that I never added any new memory. Do you think that I should move them to a new slot anyway? Or possibly get more RAM? I think I only have 64 Megs.

[Speedfreak]

You said in your first post that you had 128MB.

Anyways... Try moving the ram to a different slot. It can't hurt and MIGHT help.

Having not enough memory should not make your computer stall, it would just run very slow or not let you run programs that require more than you have.

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[mahalo]

You are right. I did say that I had 128 MEgS of Ram, but I REALLY only have 64.

Anyhow, I will give it a try.

Thanks again

[Crunch It Now]

how long has it beed since you ran scandisk and defrag?

also, is your system overclocked? sometimes if you push a cpu too far you can experience slow downs and lockups.

62% free resources is way too low - you should be above at least 75-80%. i would do what badfish said and uncheck everything in msconfig to see if it still does it

[mahalo]

Thanks for the help guys.

I ended up just backing everything up and re-installing Win 98. After trying some different things to help my computer, I totally screwed it up where it would only open in "safe" mode. It was a pain, but my computer is running a lot better now : )