Computer Freezups

[oldteacher]

I have an eMachines 600MHz computer that is over a year old. It has 2 "freeze-up" problems:

l. Every other time I turn the computer on, it locks up on the EMachines logo and will go no further. I turn the machine off, restart it, and everything boots up fine.

2. The computer came with 32 MB of RAM, however, the My Computer properties read the RAM as 3l MB. Four months ago, I had another l28 MB of RAM added. However, the My Computer properties reads it as l59 MB. Ever since the additional RAM was added, the computer now "freezes up" for about l0 seconds every l0 minutes. Everything freezes up--the mouse, curser, keyboard. After about l0 seconds, the computer unfreezes and works OK until the next time it freezes up.

Is there any way that a novice can cure problem #l?

Are the l0 second freeze-ups related to the added RAM? My uninformed opinion is that the 32 MB chip may have been defective but no effect was observable until additional RAM was added. If that is the case, could I solve the problem by merely removing the 32MB chip and replacing it with another l28MB chip?

[Junky]

Hi there,

Nothing personal, but eMachines are not well known for working well. At least the people that I have talked with that have used them, and by others comments about them. That said, there are some things that can be tried.

Are you on a LAN using a cable ISP? If so, that can cause the problem which you discribe when the computer first starts. Or it may be that it's trying to load a driver or program that is causing fits. In my opinion, the fewer the programs and drivers loaded at startup the better. Most of those things don't need to be started at first boot, they can be opened at any time from the Start button anytime you need to run them. And all those little programs that run in the background can cause major problems.

If you are running an Anti Virus program to start, scan and run in the background, disable it. See if this makes a difference. I never run an anti virus program in the background. If I feel the need, I run it manually.

Take out the 32 megs of RAM and see how it runs with only the 128. Or try it the other way around. This is to see if it is the problem. If so, you know what to replace or leave out.

Don't worry what windows reports and how much memory you have. If it's close it's working. There's several reasons that it may count this way.

Make sure you have the correct and most current video drivers installed. Check in Device Manager to make sure there are no conflict showing. Correct them if so.

Do a Find for *.tmp files. Delete all you find, except if a certain tmp file says not to delete. Do a scan disk, then do a disk defrag.

That's the best I can do for now. Let us know how it goes. :)