I’m fairly educated in the computer field, but this one’s got me stumped. My computer locks up frequently. However, I think it may be a virus because it always freezes when I’m in the middle of a game that minimizes Windows, if I’m running ScanDisk (Disk Defrag works fine), and (here’s the kicker) it always freezes at 9:33 AM every day. I’m running Win 98 and I tried re-installing Windows, but it always locks up. I tried running Norton Utilities, but the scanning locks it up. Everything else runs fine, but certain activities will freeze it up every time. Is this a virus by any chance, or am I looking at a golden re-format opportunity?
Check your antivirus. If you’ve set if for an automatic daily download, it may appear to freeze while doing that (McAfee is particularly bad). Antivirus could also interefere with other programs, causing things to freeze. Make sure your on-demand virus scanner skips the directories containing the game.
Not that I really know what your problem is, but have you tried running scandisk in dos? It’s much more reliable.
See if there are any lost clusters or some such. If your computer tries to access a bad sector, it could cause it to freeze - hence the bad stuff happening when you do the same things.
Well Norton runs a check while the computer boots. I don’t know if this is the same thing as scandisk, but it occasionally finds and corrects lost clusters, but that still doesn’t solve anything. This test also freezes up occasionally. I tried uninstalling Norton Utilities, but that made it freeze again. So the three factors that inevitably cause a freeze up are: Running any game, acessing scandisk --or a program that does the same, and the clock hitting 9:33 AM.
The clock thing is the most perplexing, but I’ll try getting Scandisk to run from DOS, or possibly updating Scandisk from Microsoft.
Cursing at the computer has also proven unsuccessful so far, and has been rigorously tested.
Hate to say it. Lost clusters are bad, and mean your hard drive is losing it. Ever gotten one of those “Unable to write to disk C:” errors?
Hmm… I can’t seem to find a cite to back up my claim though. This site seems to claim that bad hard drives can’t cause lost clusters.
Maybe my boss lied to me.
But re: scandisk in dos - you’re not dealing with windows problems when in DOS, so typically it runs better (or just runs in your case) than windows scandisk. Plus it’s not competing with any other programs for memory and CPU cycles. I have WinME, which only really uses the windows Scandisk, and I scream at the silly computer each time I have to use it. Ugh.
I wouldn’t ignore the virus possibility too. That 9:33 thing is just weird.
Around say 9 do a ctrl-alt-del & note which programs are running. I bet some program comes on. Did you give it time to run? a few minutes, perhaps? Did you try using the System Monitor program if you have it to see whats happening with the system?
Okay, today I tried booting from the Maxtor Drive Installation Disk and backing up drive C onto drive D. It froze again! If it’s a virus, I’d assume it would need Windows, or possibly DOS to become active, but I wouldn’t think it could affect a drive copy that is being run from a disk. I did, however, manage a virus scan from another computer networked to that one. I also found that, when the computer is off for a while, it will boot successfully on the first try, but will not reboot properly. I’m starting to think you folks are right about C drive being on it’s death bed.
If it locks up when you’re not in windows, it makes me believe that it’s a hardware problem.
May not be a hard drive problem. Could be CPU, motherboard, etc. You say you have a Maxtor Drive… Download this utility to verify the integrity of your drive. That is, if you can get windows to run.
When the computer locks up, is your HD light on? And does it stay on?
Man, good luck. These problems can be so hard to diagnose. My mother’s computer had Nimda on it, and we’re lucky we found out. The only symptom was that MS Office wasn’t working properly.