My computer an AMD 1.6gig, 512MB of ram, running win 98 just shuts down on its own now, whenever it feels like it.
I’m not sure if it’s a problem from Kazaa, a virus, or a short in my power control/supply box. I’m trying to run down the list of what Mathew recommend in his post on:
I’ve tried scanning for a virus with PC-cillin, but it doesn’t work, because the computer shuts down. I’ve uninstalled New.net and preparing to fix the LSP’s. SFC told me that my setup.dll(something like this, don’t have the piece of paper on me) file was corrupted. I’ve tried shutting down internat and another program but that just locks up my computer. I’ve done all the windows critical updates, I’ve deleted all the temp files and I normally defrag weekly.
I have not been able to run a successful virus check, ad-aware failed the last time but worked before, No scan disk yet, and haven’t disable unnecessary startup programs yet. I haven’t turned off power management either.
I normally only get an hour or less of time before it shuts down. If I restart it than it shuts down quicker and quicker till it’s impossible to do anything. I normally have to give it a few hours between tries to get it to do what I want.
I’m wondering if it has anything to do with those pesky ants around my computer or if I downloaded a virus through Kazaa. Any help is appreciated.
you should also try safe mode startup and see if you can run the anti-virus scanner after it starts. Safe mode will not load a lot of drivers which might be infected. If you understand what is actually necessary for windows to startup in the config.sys, you might want to do the step by step confirm startup. You can figure out if anything has been added to the startup routine.
Sounds like a virus. But trying booting up your system in safe mode as markshih has mentioned. I have gotten several viruses lately, but my software has picked them up right away, you may have caught something through your email.
I think Bad sector HDD might also cause the same problem. How long have you been using your HDD?
Other possibility is some conflicts between application you’re running. Try uninstall some of applications that you installed lately and are not really sure of its whatabout…
I once had that problem. I replaced it with new system hard drive, had the system reinstalled and it all went back to normal.
Search for the AVG virus scanner, it’s free and runs in the background, can scan emails and run scheduled.
Never had any problem since I installed it, detected some viruses before and killed them.
It also updates when you want it to, either manually or automatically.
I’ve discontinued all the extranious start up stuff. I’m currently defragging, but it is going really slow
I still have to run successfully the following programs
PC-cillin
Ad-aware
Scandisk
The file that was corrupted is called setupx.dll
Rascal- I’ll download that after I get this all cleared up
Ax- I’ve had the HDD for 6 months, I’m only using 10-15 gig of a 60 gig HDD. I’m also getting rid of certain programs. I’m pretty much done with Kazaa, and will use kazaalite after that. I wasn’t aware the enormous amount of spyware from Kazaa. My internet explorer hasn’t been acting up with yahoo.com though and that is nice. I use to get a lot of “Line 3## has a bug, do you wish to debug?”
As far as a virus, worm, or trojan horse, I wouldn’t of gotten it from an email. I only open emails from people I know and they’ve all been normal emails. If I was going to get a something like that, it would be from something downloaded from Kazaa.
Now that I think about it, It started after I tried to play a couple DVD’s that realplayer couldn’t handle. It was locking up my computer for 2-5 minutes before it would tell me realplayer couldn’t run them. Realplayer has been removed.
Thanks for all the help and suggestions, please keep them coming.
the current breed of virii who spread via email, use outlook/outlook express address books, so you alway get email with virus from the people you know.
The best defence I know is to use netscape 4.7x to get emails, it to too dumb to run any of the scripts etc so the virus do not run automatically Outlook is good but you got to keep d/l the patches. Plus Norton/Mcafee does help a lot.
What I found current must have programs on the HDD, Win2k with latest SP and patches on NTFS, Office with latest SP and patches,
Lavasoft’s Ad-aware, Norton/Mcafee antivirus, Kazaalite and Netscape 4.7x for emails.Fentun for decoding winmailxxx.dat files.
Next time, why don’;t you set up another partition, then when the first partition goes screwy, you can just move over to the new one.
Actually this is what my disk looks like
Administrator partition: Bootmagic, Partitionmagic, little else, small size (i forgot how small windows 98 can be squeezed into!)
Work partition or the main partition.
Reserve partition or other
Data disk
But then I have a large hard disk, and one extra for data…
According to what i have read, you can have four partitions with os on them if they can’t use logical partitions.
Anyone know why I can’t set up a fourth partition with Windows on it?
Also, anyone know if it’s legal or illegal to have one edition of Windows installed four times??? It’s the same pc, just a different location on the disk.
So, anyway, in future, you can try something like that, and whenever a partition goes screws, just reformat, copy the fresh partition using partition magic, and you’re done! Though you have to make sure you have all your email, favorites, data, settings, etc. backed up too.
I have my drive partitioned with a C and a D drive. I use the C drive for everything. How would I go about reformatting it? Would I lose all my programs on my computer that I downloaded or loaded on to it?
I’m not sure what to do at this point. It’s quite infuriating for a computer to just shut off without warning or even locking up first. I can understand locking up, but the F$^^*^ piece of ^&* justs shuts down like some yanked the plug.
Thanks for the help and let me know what you would suggest next Ken.
I haven’t set it up here yet, but I had a similar setup back home. I just had a partition that had the system files on it. And another partition that had all my files (games, movies, “important” stuff). Actually, they were two separate hard drives.
With Windows 98 you can install it directly from the hard drive if you have the whole CD installed on the drive. I’d have my copy of windows on the D: drive.
When ever things went screwy, I just formated and reinstalled if it got to be too big a problem. With all your device drivers, install cd’s and data on a separate drive, a reinstall is a breeze.
On to my advice. I say back everything up, format and reinstall.
But before you do that, are you sure it’s a software problem? If you leave it turned on it safemode does it just turn off suddenly? If you’re sure it’s software, definitely reinstall. It’s less of a headache.
NEVER trust your computer. ALWAYS back up. Then when it craps out on you, re-install.
I recommend that you boot to a bootable floppy diskette. You can have someone else make one for you with Windows 98 and let it sit there for a while. If it stays on, you can try running some dos utilities like checkdisk or defrag. If it still stays on, you can reformat and reinstall your OS because it is most likely SW problems.
[quote=“Okami”]Yes it will turn off suddenly in Safe mode, had it there once and zap, damn thing shut down on me.
So is it hardware or software and how do I tell the difference?
Okami[/quote]
Sounds like hardware to me. Might be as easy as replacing the power supply. Power supplies do go bad and cause all kinds of heartache because you don’t know WTF is going on. I agree with ali run a few more tests and see what comes of it. It would suck to reinstall everything (if it’s something you don’t normally do) and find out it was the power supply.
Some suggest me that before when my computer turned off suddenly like that. It’s really frustrating. I changed the fan. throw away the casing, but it’s still shutting down. I gave that PC away and bought a new one…
Kudos to everyone who said Virus, seems my machine was infected through Kazaa by the Win32/Hantaner virus.
I downloaded the new upgrade from PC-cillin and had the little f%%^ removed this afternoon. I started by deleting a lot of things I didn’t need and that seemed to be giving a virus scan problems. I then downloaded the upgrade and ran a successful virus scan before and after the upgrade. It took the upgrade to catch the little b#^*#@$.
So I would add to Mathew’s list “download virus update if available” to things to do to my computer. I’m also going to start backing up all my programs just in case I have a problem next time. This should take me about a week after my vacation.
Thanks ax and miltonkid for the pms offering help. I owe ax a durian sometime. I might even do something with that Karma thing, but don’t get your hopes up, I’m notoriously lazy.
