Mouse and Keyboard freeze

Using my Pentium 233 with W98 4/10/98 edition:
Day1- After some 2-3 hours use, suddenly both mouse and keyboard freeze. Reset computer and it happens again after 1 hour. I cleaned out the fan, although no fluff and it it did not appear to be dirty. I checked security of all cables and cleaned the mouse.
Day2- Worked fine all day
Day3- As Day 1 #%&$@. All suggestions gratefully received.
Regards,
Pat

 

Hello Pat, The problem does seem to be temperature related, rather than
98SE. Maybe exchange the fan/s ?
regards

 

Hi Merlin,
Thankyou for your reply. I forgot to say in my first posting that antivirus reported no virus. Strange how I got 2 more freezes the day after cleaning the fan but none since; for which I suppose I should only be grateful!
Kind Regards,
Pat Alley

 

You mentioned cleaning out the fan, did you mean just the processor fan? These older 233 mhz computers usually have just one exhaust fan, and this is on the power supply. This power supply has intake vents that are only seen by taking the case apart, these vents may be clogged, preventing any air flow.

 

Hi Merlin,

I am still being plagued by the problem mentioned but rather than a mouse fault I think it is best now to describe it as a computer crash since everything freezes.
1. I cleaned both the exhaust and microprocessor fan (although they were quite clean to begin with). The exhaust air from the power supply gets slightly warm after an hour but the tower case is cool to the touch all round.
2. The crash occurs after an indeterminate time, the pointer freezes or disappears and the keyboard stops functioning. After a minute or so pressing keys I always re-start in case it is a heat problem in which case one would expect it to crash at a much earlier stage than before; but this is not always the case..
3. In Control Panel, System , both the keyboard and mouse get a clean bill of health i.e. “This Drive is working properly, “No interrupt conflictsâ€, “Best Drive already installedâ€.
4. AVG reports no virus on booting up and following a full check.
5. I have recently loaded Adware which found no problem.
6. All cables and plugs are secure.
7. Since on re-booting all is in order could the problem be to do with the Registry? Unfortunately since I have never seen an explicit and lucid description of the Registry I tend to think of it as a no-go area!
8. Alternatively although I have 64mb of Ram it reports only 65% of it is working. Could this be the problem and if so how do I increase the percentage?

Kind regards,
Pat

 

Pat Alley

w9x's and system lockup after 2 plus hours of use could also be a User Resource issue. There is a reserved area of memory, when over committed, can only be "released / refresh via a reboot. The cause / culprit is generally poorly written program(s) which do NOT return reserved memory back when closed or after running an internal request. Adding more RAM memory is NOT a solution. Have to find which program is causing the problem, which can be a real pain.

 

It wouldn't hurt to clean out the registry. Go get Regclean from the link below.
http://download.com.com/3000-2094-881470.html?tag=list
Create a folder and unzip Regclean into it. Then just run it, when the button appears saying Fix Errors, click on it. Now Restart in Dos Mode, and do these commands, pressing Enter at the end of each line.
scanreg /opt
scanreg /fix
When you receive the message that windows has repaired your registry, reboot.
About the memory, the 65% means that it is that percentage of the memory being used, the rest is available but wasn't in use at the time.
Windows handles the memory usage.
The computer freezing, considering the age of the computer, maybe the sign of hardware going bad. Power supply could be it, although a video card will give the same signs, or the processor.

 

Hi Dennis - Thankyou for your advice. Is there a schedule,tutorial, sequence, recognised method for finding the program which may be causing the problem?

Hi Markp62 -Thankyou also for your advice. I tried RegClean and followed your instructions but unfortunately no cure. However with the recurring necessity to press Restart or switching off the power I did the latter without
thinking and because I was still on-line a mains spike put paid to my external modem. Meanwhile how can I identify which bit of hardware may be causing the problem? In fact I did do a defrag then used just the tower with a different monitor, speakers, keyboard and mouse with no printer or scanner attached. The freeze occured immediately after boot up. Then having pressed Reset I spent the next 5 hours without a problem. During the next week I had no problems then one day it froze once again after a 4 hour session. I have not used it since and am presently typing on my grandson's computer!

 

Since there have been no further suggestions and assuming that mine is a software problem, could I ask if perhaps an answer might be to reload my W98 CD to overwrite the present version?

Regards,
Pat

 

Unbelievable ! Same thing happened to me twice today - scrambled BIOS -
settings after some power-outs the UPS was too slow to catch.
Check your BIOS settings Pat Alley.
Also, boot from a floppy and type sys c: to restore system files.
regards

 

Oh dear, sorry if I might have misled you on this one. I have a totally dead Athlon - going to the tech shop tomorrow - I think the power supply unit needs replacing.
regards

 

Go to Start\Run, and type in Msconfig and press Enter. Click on Startup tab, uncheck everything but both PowerProf entries, Systray, and Scanregw entries and reboot. If the freezing does not occur, it may be one of the programs you unchecked.
Recheck one, reboot, until you find one that starts the freezing.
BTW, if this is a hardware problem, reinstalling windows will not help.
If it is a software problem, the software problem may still be there.

 

Strange ! My favorite Tech had to replace a defect Video Card - which has so far cured the freeze and bad boot problems I had all of a sudden - PC would
eventually not boot at all - even from a floppy.
Maybe the trouble you are having is also Video Card related ?
Or a mixture of Mark's suggestion and this one, that the video card fan
is dead and an overheating card is causing the problem ?
Maybe a post in the Hardware Board would bring some help.
regards

 

Thankyou Merlin and Mark for your help. I eventually did as you said Merlin and after disabling the antivirus and screen saver simply loaded a Windows ME CD (not Windows SE as originally intended) and pressed Setup. Halfway through Setup the computer froze and I had to press Reset but it rebooted in Safe Mode but a warning came up confessing it could not continue the Setup in Safe Mode and told me to re-boot in Full Mode: which it wouldn't. After recourse to the MS website for information I re-booted in Safe Mode and disabled all the boxes in MS Config and then pressed Reset and it went back into Full Mode but before I had time to replace the CD, Setup took over with 19 minutes to go and completed the setup withoiut the CD (obviously the CD contents are transferred to C: at a very early stage!!).

As to be expected all the legacy programs were still in French and I later uninstalled most of them. However two problems viz:

1. Six of the programs are the French edition of MS Word 2000, Excel, Publisher, Photodraw, Outlook and Small Business which cannot be uninstalled without the original CD. I prefer MS Office97 myself because of my familiarity with it and I do have the original CD.. Whilst no doubt a more up-to-date CD would overwrite the 2000 edition, do you think the 97 version would, and if not how might I get rid of the French 2000 edition ?

2. Regarding Windows Explorer, the Menu “Help – About Windows†confirms it is the Millenium edition and the Help Topics are all in English so one would imagine it had overwritten the French version. However not completely because the rest of the menus (File = Fichier etc) together with their drop-down windows and the tools are all in French!! Incidentally under ‘Accessories’ all including Notepad and Paint are in English except for Wordpad where the Menu, drop-down windows and tools (like Word and Explorer) are also in French. Do you think re-installing the ME CD and clicking “Setup†once more may correct this?

However the good news is that in the last 3 days I have spent a total of some 15 hours on the computer with no freeze up! Meanwhile I have been sorting out the MSConfig problem and so far have only one more main box to go which is WIN.ini but have not so far found which of its boxes will accept a tick (and in any case when I do, I won't know how to correct it in any case).

I can see you shaking your head Mark saying why doesn't this idiot just do a full Setup to circumvent the present problems. The answer is because I have not done it before although I have studied the Microsoft instructions which being written by an expert tends to be disjointed through assuming the reader has prior knowledge of what is left out!. So let me confirm this with you. I have an ME Bootdisk and I assume the names Bootdisk, Startup disk (whether preceded by the word Emergency or not), EMD and ERD are all synonomous and the same thing

1. Having loaded the floppy disk and switched on the computer it will then start and at the A prompt I type fdisk so (A:\> fdisk ). It will then partition the disk and I follow the instructions for a FAT32 single partition. When it finishes it will shut down the computer and I switch it off..

2. I leave the disk in, switch the computer back on and at the A prompt type format so (A:\> format c. Once again I follow the instructions. When it finishes it will shut down the computer and I switch it off.

3. I leave the disk in, switch the computer back on and When the Windows ME Startup menu is displayed, choose the “Start computer with CD-ROM support†option, and then press ENTER. CD-ROM support will be provided by the generic drivers on the Startup disk and I should receive one of the following messages, Drive D: = Driver MSCD001(or OEMCD001) where D is the most probable drive letter assigned to the CD-ROM drive. At this point I load the ME CD and type D:\setup and then press ENTER and follow the instructions on the screen to complete the Setup procedure:

My apologies for inflicting this long diatribe on you!

Kind Regards,
Pat

 

I do not think doing an overlay install of windows will change the French words into English, it didn't work the first time.
About the confirmation of the install.
You can skip the part about Fdisk, unless you had some problems with the current partition.
The format will clean off your drive sufficiently.
About the CD in dos mode, using the boot floppy, chances are the drive letter will be E, instead of the D that you expect. This is because a Ramdrive is created in memory, like a hard drive but only exists in your Ram, this is where the diagnostic tools are loaded. This Ramdrive is assigned the letter D. Reboot, and it is gone.

 

Mouse & Keyboard Freeze

Thankyou Mark for the information but unfortunately I would come unstuck at the first hurdle. The reason I say this is because I have found that if I boot up using the Emergency Rescue disk and select item 2 to start with CD support (and loaded the CD), on every occasion the program will only get as far as the two lines:
IDE prepare code page function completed
IDE select code page function completed.

I have visited Bootdisk.com to pick up several versions of bootdisks but get exactly the same problem. It gets to those same two lines then hangs.

MeanwhiIe I find if I use my ERD on a “good” computer it runs the further 10 lines to correctly finish at the A prompt.
Regards,
Pat

 

The dos CD drivers on the floppy are conflicting with your CD-Rom.
You could swap the CD drives, and then install windows.
When setup is done, remove the CD drive from the Device Manager, then Shut Down, and then swap the drives back.
OR
The CD is only needed during the first stage of installation. When windows setup is counting down to reboot for the first time, manually turn off the computer. Then swap the CD drives so the original is detected during setup. Be sure to take the floppy out at this time, it will no longer be needed by setup.

 

Thankyou Mark for the information but unfortunately I seem to have a problem with my bootdisk. I have found that if I boot up using the Emergency Rescue disk (ERD) and select item 2 to start with CD support (and loaded the CD), on every occasion the program will only get as far as the two lines:
IDE prepare code page function completed
IDE select code page function completed.

I have visited Bootdisk.com to pick up several versions of bootdisks but get exactly the same problem. It gets to those same two lines then hangs.

MeanwhiIe I find if I use my ERD on a “good” computer it runs the further 10 lines to correctly finish at the A prompt.
Regards,
Pat

 

Mark, please ignore my very last post. For some reason I thought my previous post had not been recorded so what I wrote is a repeat. Only then did I realise you had already answered my question. My sincere apologies
Regards,
Pat

 

Hi Pat, remember I had the same problem as posted above ?
Well here all is well again after replacing memory stick @ 50 USD.
Maybe this applies to your problem also ?
Get the shop to put you memory in a test computer and see if it freezes
or will not boot correctly.
regards