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Help me please big you brained computer folks (1 Viewer)

LaMarcus

Screenwriter
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Mar 7, 2002
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LaMarcus
My computer works fine for the most part its a modest dell that i put into a new case , Im running win2000 (upgrade from ME). I use a dial up modem 56k (sucks) and 9 out of the 10 times that i m on the net at home it will lock up with no response all I can do is turn the power off and back on . What the hell is wrong with this thing? Do I need more ram, a better modem, or new drivers I cant figure this one....
 

Juan Castillo

Second Unit
Joined
Jan 22, 2002
Messages
434
as soon as it locks up, try hitting Ctrl + Alt + Delete keys, and look at the task manager. It should tell you which items are not responding. Those are more than likely the culprit. Uninstall, and reinstall those items to see if that fixes anything. If your computer locks up completely and there is nothing you can do, the upgrade more than likely caused some probs that are not visible. The only thing left to do is wipe your drive clean, and do a clean install of the OS of your choice. I am not a fan of upgrading from one to another unless it is a Second edition of the same. More than likely, these probs are not caused by bad hardware. You can run scandisk on your drive to make sure that their are not bad sectors or clusters, and hopefully if there are Scandisk can fix them. Good luck
 

Jon_R

Stunt Coordinator
Joined
Jan 31, 2001
Messages
174
Pull all the hardware out aside from video card and modem. If you are comfortable in the BIOS, disable all other ports to free up IRQ. This is to see if you have a hardware conflict. Now connect and see what happens. If it still locks up, then its less likely a hardware problem. It could still be a conflict w/ the video card.

There are other things but I'm at work. And they don't call it work for nothing.

Let me know and we'll work on it some more.

Jon
 

LaMarcus

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LaMarcus
Thanks guys, to reply on some of your responses.....the computer locked up even when ME was the original OS , and when it locks up you cant do anything, there is NO responsec at all! lol . NO key response no nothing tried ctrl+atl+del nada! I will try some of your other suggestions I will hold the formating the hardrive for last
htf_images_smilies_smiley_jawdrop.gif
cus I dont have a zip drive to try to save all my files, well I guess i can but the all on a cdr, but man what a hassle:angry:
 

LaMarcus

Screenwriter
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LaMarcus
Oh yea , one more thing forgot to mention sometimes it just kicks me off saying you have been disconnected then when i try to reconnect , it says that the port is in use, then when i check the modem in the device manager it says its working fine, even when i disable it then reenable it its still in use only way to free up the port is to restart, i dont know....
 

Glenn Overholt

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Mar 24, 1999
Messages
4,201
Need more info! (But don't want it). :) Were you running 2k before you changed cases?
If so, maybe you didn't put the cards into the same mobo slots. That will certainly screw things up.
As Jon said, the IRQ's could easily be the culprit. Also, if you upgraded from ME to 2k, your modem may require a different driver.
You could check the device manager for conflicts first. However, even though none may be listed if you have too many devices on the same IRQ, you can run into problems. I hope that helps.
Glenn
 

ChristianW

Stunt Coordinator
Joined
Jun 13, 2001
Messages
101
Considering you had this problem in ME, this is what I would do...

1. Download (if you can) some modem drivers for 2000.

2. Backup everything you want.

3. Format the drive.

4. Install 2000 from scratch.

If your problem was software related it could very well have been carried over if you simply did an upgrade of the OS. A clean install is the only way to ensure that isn't the issue.

If the problem persists, I would strip the system back to bare essentials. With the plug-and-pray nature of modern OS's your unlikely to have resource conflicts, so i'd leave this to last.

Good luck, and let us know how things go.
 

Aaron Schmitt

Stunt Coordinator
Joined
May 26, 1999
Messages
203
I had a similar problem with software/hardware lock while connected to the internet (dial up on Win2k) after I installed the Detonator XP drivers for my geforce video card. After I rolled back to an older driver, the problem went away.

Aaron
 

Troy Swope

Stunt Coordinator
Joined
Mar 1, 2002
Messages
50
Also, make sure that the hardware inside the computer ... Video Card, Modem, and any other add in cards are on the Windows 2000 Hardware Compat List... (HCL) Win2k can be very picky with some of the hardware.

Food for thought, next time you do an upgrade, you are ALWAYS better to back your data up, then do a clean install on a freshly formatted hard drive.

The lockups from the Win9X OS, may not be related to the ones you are having now, windows 9x was famous for not freeing old resources (mainly memory) once it was no longer being used.

HTH.

-troy
 

Wayne Bundrick

Senior HTF Member
Joined
May 17, 1999
Messages
2,358
My instinct would be to blame the modem. Either the driver is bug-ridden or the modem itself is locking up the motherboard.

Frankly, the state of the art in modems has gone down the toilet ever since they started making "WinModems" that require proprietary software drivers. I'll never use a modem that doesn't provide a genuine COM port hardware interface that even DOS can use. The last modem I bought was a U.S. Robotics 5610, it's the only PCI modem I know that fits the bill.
 

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