LITTLEBLACKDOG.COM

Butt Sniffer Joined: 22 Aug 2003 Posts: 1822

Hello everyone! I have another brain teaser.

Update 2: Tried ccleaner. Removed all the bad entries and crud from the drive. Still did not want to boot into windows normally without freezing. I finally did what I did not want to do.... I fdisked, formated and reinstalled Windows 98 SE. Finally the computer works normally. It boots into windows just fine and quick too. I was amazed... it takes less than a minute to get into windows now and about 10 seconds to shut down (no kidding). Given it only has 16 colors but I don't mind. I figure I'll use it for one of my older printers (if I can find the ink) and the kids can use them when they are old enough to need a computer for homework. Haha.... no fun stuff on the homework computer. Yes... I am evil. Very Happy

I got this Compaq Presario 5714 from a friend of mine. I am currently trying to get it to stop freezing when it starts up. What I mean by this is that it will go into Windows 98, start loading everything up but then it won't let me do anything. It just freezes and then I have to turn it off by unplugging it in the back. Pressing the power button is supposed to shut it off but it doesn't work when it freezes like this.

Update: New info: I am able to get it to run fine in safe mode. I was able to do all the system maintenance - scandisk, defrag, delete junk programs, etc.

I also put another stick of 64k SDRAM in it so it now has a total of 130k. Let's just say it runs much much faster when I go into safe mode. It takes 2 minutes instead of 5.

Oh and opening the case.... hell on earth. Trick is unscrew the five case screws on the back, breaking off the feet (yes you have to do this to unscrew the two bottom foot screws, and then you can finally grab the rubber handle on the back and lift/pull the whole middle out of the case. Big pain in the @ss. I really frown upon this setup due to the fact that you could damage something (luckily I didn't) when you're removing and reassembling. Mad

Oh a more positive note: The hard drive is huge. I could land a plane -okay maybe a toy plane on that thing. (It does have the shape of one of those battleships in the sea with the runways - the blinking green light adds to it. ) lol Laughing

I downloaded all the drivers. I do not have a recovery cd for this computer. Though I wish I could find someone with an iso for this computer since Compaq can't make recovery cds for OSes that are no longer supported by Microsoft. I believe Windows 98 isn't supported anymore.

Okay, turns out I don't need a full recovery cd since my Windows 98 SE (legal copy) worked to repair any broken system files. Surprisingly enough it only did a repair instead of a format/reinstall. It was really nice.

~~Every once in a while it will say something about the audio driver causing an error. Could the audio driver freeze up the entire system if it was corrupted somehow?~~

I definitely think that its something that is loading up on normal mode that freezes up the system because it works fine in safe mode. I tried a diagnostic startup with system config but it still freezes. I'm going to try to see if I can somehow get the certain drivers uninstalled so windows will be forced to use default ones because it seems to work okay with those.

Also, any advice on how to troubleshoot this one?

~~Oh and I wanted to reinstall 98 like I've done with my other computers back in the day but it won't let me. Really weird....~~ Turns out the reason why is that the Compaq doesn't support Windows 98 only the Windows SE which has a bootable installation cd. Neutral

Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 5:00 pm Post subject:

clean out the heatsink and freshen up the thermal grease. it's prolly overheating and shutting down due to that. or the power supply is going out.

two things to try anyhow

Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 6:25 pm Post subject:

Quit possible that the Ram is corrupted as well. Double check harddrive and memory.

For Restore CDs this site offers them for about 26 bucks

http://www.restoredisks.com/

Yes Win 98 is no longer supported.

Butt Sniffer Joined: 22 Aug 2003 Posts: 1822

Thank you to everyone who responded. I will keep those things in mind. :3

Posted: Thu Apr 17, 2008 9:23 am Post subject:

Have you run regedit in safe mode? It should help in troubleshooting what is being loaded on bootup.

Butt Sniffer Joined: 22 Aug 2003 Posts: 1822

the taz man wrote:
Have you run regedit in safe mode? It should help in troubleshooting what is being loaded on bootup.

Well not regedit. I did use regclean to get rid of the 600 something bad entries in the registry but even that did not help.

I ended up having to fdisk, format and reinstall windows 98 SE from scratch.

/edit: 7,31,08: Got rid of it. It didn't get more than 8 colors. I had to clear out space. The hubby was getting ticked at the computers in our bedroom taking up space. (Its the only place I could hide them from little fingers.) I don't need cookies in my zip drive again. D:

anglachel wrote:

the taz man wrote: