Author Topic: Diagnosing Computer  (Read 3634 times)

Canuck

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Diagnosing Computer
« on: June 01, 2005, 09:55:47 PM »
I wasnt sure where to put this, so I put it in S/W.

A friend of mine at work wants me to look at his P2 with Win 98.  From what he told me, he tried to get on the net (dial up), and his browser, yes IE, kept crashing.  And suddenly his connection to AOL (I guess the shortcut) disappeared, and he can no longer connect.  Someone looked at it, and all they did was a defrag. (thought it was the HD)

I was just wondering what I should look at.  I was thinking of running spy bot, and adaware, maybe even a virus scan.  Are there any programs I can use to check if the RAM is bad?  Any other things I should look at?

Thanks!

ygfperson

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Diagnosing Computer
« Reply #1 on: June 01, 2005, 10:19:25 PM »
there's memtest, which works some of the time. there's no perfect way of testing ram, afaik. you pretty much just have to swap it out and hope you notice a change.

win98 is notoriously unstable, so it could be that. spybot and adaware couldn't hurt. if i had to guess myself i'd say something in explorer messed up and you would need to reinstall windows.

ober

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Diagnosing Computer
« Reply #2 on: June 01, 2005, 10:26:36 PM »
None of that stuff really screams adaware or hardware to me.  I'd question how long 98 has been installed and figure on backing up his stuff and doing a reinstall.  I think the recommended period of time for a 98 install was no more than 2 years.

Canuck

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Diagnosing Computer
« Reply #3 on: June 01, 2005, 11:04:47 PM »
Thanks for the input, I just wanted to try a few things before I do a reinstall.  He wanted to purchase a new HD, but I wanted to take a look at it before he did so.

I hope he has a burner...

[stealth]

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Diagnosing Computer
« Reply #4 on: June 01, 2005, 11:25:42 PM »
I used to have this problem with IE/98.  Basically it comes down to Explorer itself crashing and being unable to reload the dialup connection.  If it's happening all the time, just reinstall Windows.  It's just 98 being shit.
...

obsidian

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Diagnosing Computer
« Reply #5 on: June 03, 2005, 08:25:35 AM »
one word... LINUX

lol