Author Topic: Need some help (Read 451 times)

Sturm · « **on:** March 14, 2001, 10:08:00 AM »

I have had in 5 days 42 Disco's or so, and for the light of me I cannot find the problem. I would have to say 25$ of them are when my modem goes blank. I have a Athlon 600 160 megs of ram, 32meg geforce card and running win 98. I just recently went back to 98, do to continuos lock ups with win 2k. It is becoming rather frustrating, and I am afraid of even trying to get a perk plane up for I never know when it will lock up next. Any possible solutions welcomed or any advice.

Lephturn · « **Reply #1 on:** March 14, 2001, 11:01:00 AM »

If you were having continuous lock ups with Win2k you have an underlying hardware problem.

If you modem is "going blank", it sounds like you might have a flaky modem.

If you post your system details and a bit more of a description of what happens, I'll try to help.

------------------
Sean "Lephturn" Conrad - Aces High Chief Trainer

A proud member of the mighty Flying Pigs
http://www.flyingpigs.com

Check out Lephturn's Aerodrome for AH articles and training info!

Sturm · « **Reply #2 on:** March 14, 2001, 11:39:00 AM »

WIn 98 SE
Athlon 600
160 ram ill find specs and what brand later on it
32 meg creative labs geforce
20 gig IBM HD <----- this might be the prob
66mhz Ultra ATA controller <----- this might be the prob
Creative Labs Live Value Sound card
intellistupidpoint mouse

Precision Pro Joystick
Microsoft Digital Sound System 80 Speaker system What about this?
I have tried everything and I have narrowed it down to motherboard HD or speakers. Latest drivers on everything but it only locks up in this game. Very odd

bloom25 · « **Reply #3 on:** March 14, 2001, 11:55:00 AM »

Is your ATA66 controller sharing an interupt with ANY other device. Those ATA controller cards are resource HOGS, absolutely make sure they are not sharing with other devices.

I doubt the drive itself is at fault, though it is possible. Try running scandisk on it and check for errors. (Note: If it is larger than 32Gb the scandisk included in 98 and ME will report errors, it's a scandisk bug.)

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bloom25
THUNDERBIRDS

Sturm · « **Reply #4 on:** March 14, 2001, 12:26:00 PM »

First thing I did was check the old device manager for such errors to occur, no such luck controller is free of sharing. And there is no IRQ conflicts either. I do notice performance hitches when I get near a cloud or smoke on the ground 8FPS max and the old hard drive kind of chugs. Normally runs up to 50FPS clear and 32 FPS with planes around. Redid my swap file late last night and will see if this might help some. So far I am drawing a blank and I am no dummy with puters. <Net Eng.> If you need anymore details fire away I am pretty frustrated right now, and I know it has to frustrate someone who is on my 6 and sees me disappear. I know it makes me mad when I line up on someone and then the instant lock up. Oh mouse still works, control alt delete wont just makes instant reboot. The lock ups occur at will, sometimes I can go a couple hours, other times every 45 minutes.

sax · « **Reply #5 on:** March 15, 2001, 07:59:00 AM »

Try running with your Roger Wilco turned off.
I,ve had more lock ups caused by it than any hardware issue.

sax

Sturm · « **Reply #6 on:** March 15, 2001, 09:04:00 AM »

Havent used RW as of yet, when I reinstalled sys Saturday night did it with bare minimum installs. But I found the problem last night. Ran a diagnostic test on HD and came up with R/W errors. So I am off to get a new one sent to me. Hope this cures that problem and I am having cox come out tonight to look at my modem, only had 2 DC's last night which is far better then the 15-20 I was getting. I also did some of the things people had mentioned which might fix problems and I have to say this after those changes mucho better thanks again for the help.

bloom25 · « **Reply #7 on:** March 15, 2001, 05:56:00 PM »

Possible long shot here: What USB devices do you have? Joystick, modem, etc?

I'm thinking maybe those speakers are USB, and your USB hub is sharing an interupt with SC, modem, ATA66 controller etc. You wouldn't easily spot this either.

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bloom25
THUNDERBIRDS

Lephturn · « **Reply #8 on:** March 16, 2001, 06:59:00 AM »

Yuck, USB speakers. Run away. Bloom, I'm sure his Precision Pro is also USB so there could be an issue there. You don't have a USB modem or DSL device do you Sturm? That would likely cause you problems in combination with the speakers.

BTW, don't believe device manager. It's not IRQ "conflicts" you are looking for, it's IRQ sharing. Device manager won't report IRQ conflicts on PCI devices, since it assumes they can share IRQ's properly. Fire up System Information from the Accessories|System Tools directory. It will give you a nice IRQ report. In modern machines, it is almost impossible to have one that doesn't have shared IRQ's, the trick is to save a few for certain devices like sound, video, and network/modem so they can exist on their own.

------------------
Sean "Lephturn" Conrad - Aces High Chief Trainer

A proud member of the mighty Flying Pigs
http://www.flyingpigs.com

Check out Lephturn's Aerodrome for AH articles and training info!

Sturm · « **Reply #9 on:** March 16, 2001, 07:36:00 AM »

Status report, Cox cable came by last night. Modem was sinked to high, tweaked it and much smoother connects to Internet now. Also the HD having R/W problems was another problem in this twisted saga which new one should be here by tomorrow. Last night only 2 disconnects, far better then the 15-20 I was averaging. I am usign 2 USB devices. Speakers and the Joystick. Only the speakers are running on the USB hub, Joystick no worky so I took the adapter off. System information was the first place I checked, didn't find any sharing conflicts but did find another problem. Thanks again hopefully new HD will solve everything.