computer freeze ups

[bigdogdad]

I have had this problem for a while now but I thought I would see if anyone here would be able to offer a suggestion.

My computer, when I am on line, likes to freeze. Some one told me it was a problem between my modem and mouse. They are on the same system or something like that. I don't know. I have dial up internet. Only happens when I use the internet. No problems in excel or word processing. Just when on line.

Any suggestions. Thanks.

[nehope]

It does sound like your mouse and modem are using the same Com port. The mouse should be on Com1 and the modem on Com2. Do you have a serial mouse? If you do, does your computer support a PS/2 mouse? Exactly old is this computer?

[bigdogdad]

The computer is about 4 years old. I just checked in the control panel and the modem is on com 2. The mouse is PS/2 but I couldn't find out if it was on com 1 or com 2. Looked everywhere but I couldn't find what the mouse was on.

[CREWZIN]

I had a problem like that so I called Gateway (that's the computer I have of course). One of the tech's talked me through a whole bunch of windows where I had things stored that I didn't need, like deleted e-mails, and other stuff that was bogging down the speed of the computer and apparently causing it to freeze up, because once I got rid of a lot of stuff I haven't had the freeze problem. He also had me run a "defrag" program that put all my files in order.

[bigdogdad]

Crewzin

I defrag and do a disk clean up weekly. I am also a clean up nut on deleting old e-mails and such. I don't save nothing. Who knows. maybe I deleted something that I shouldn't have.

[Dalite]

If the mouse is a PS/2, it is probably an IRQ 13 device. The easiest way to find out the cure to those IRQ collision/conflicts is to boot to the safe mode, then look at the device manager under system in the control panel. It is then you will see all the "phantom" devices that Bill Gate's "Plug and Pray" (not quite ready for prime time) programming created. If you see that you have 6 mice and 10 keyboards, you have found the root of the problem.

Anytime that you see the same device listed more than once when viewing the device manager via the safe mode, remove all instances of that device and shutdown then power back up and let the plug and pray have another shot. This will usually correct the problem.

The modem is best on Com2. Com2 and Com4 use IRQ3. Com 1 and 3 use IRQ4. IRQ3 is a higher priority Interrupt Request Line and is best used to give the modem highest priority. If your mouse has the connector that looks like a mini keyboard, it should not be treated as a serial mouse.

I think that holding shift F5 while booting will bring up the safe mode, if you are not configured for a start-up menu.

You can run always msconfig from the Start Menu, "Run" option and enable selective start-up.

I found that while beta testing all Bill Gates current retail versions of Windoze, it is best to have a way to untweak his team's latest/greatest snafus. The start-up menu gives you the chance to start windoze in various configurtations, start DOS (unless you have XP; no more DOS after that version) and provides a way to correct those sticky problems that seem to always come up when you are running an operating system on a computer that was designed specifically not to run that kind of operating system; but that is another story for later on.

[nehope]

Dalite is right, if it is a PS/2 mouse there shouldn't be conflicts with the modem, but it actually uses IRQ 12, 13 is the math coprocessor. PS/2 mice won't use a Com port. IRQs can and will be shared by devices that aren't used alot. What OS are you running? if it Windows 98, God help you - just kidding (sort of). Is it anywhere you go on the internet or is it confined to forums like this one and chat rooms? Also, like Dalite says, check Device Manager - look for yellow ? marks (unknown device) or yellow ! marks which will mean conflicting devices.

[bigdogdad]

Well, I am using Windows 98, guess that shows the age of the computer. The freezing happens even when I'm doing my online banking, using search engines, etc. Plan on getting a new system but not until the end of the year. Trying to make this one last a little longer. I am going to go into the safe mode and try what was suggested. It's been nice knowing all you. Thanks for all of your imput also.

[nehope]

Here's another thought - is your hard drive maxed out? Maybe you need to adjust the size of your virtual memory. You know 98 can be upgraded to W2K Pro which is a much more stable OS. You just need a Pentium 133 Mhz processor, 64MB of RAM, and about 2GB of hard drive space. Might be cheaper than a new computer.

It does sound like a resource problem, though. I have a similar problem with my laptop and Compaq had me changing values in the registry and turning alot of display/video settings to bare miniumum, which I found unacceptable. My OS is XP Pro.

Anyway, good luck!

[bigdogdad]

Well, I didn't have a melt down. So far I checked out the start up menu and there were 44 items on that menu. I know one that I do need is "3COMLINK" which I believe is my modem. The other is, and I'm not really sure if I need it but for some reason I did, is "CME SYS". After spending a whole day deleting and adding back until I found what I needed for the dail up, this is what I ended up with. I also went into "safe mode" and I did have two modems and two mouse's.
After many hours of trying to find in the closet just what I had, I deleted the ones that didn't belong. Rebooted and went on line for about 45 minutes then it froze. Bumber. During safe mode I did see alot of games which I just know I didn't do. I think and am almost sure that when I take my mini vacations, I have a dog sitter, house sitter, cat and fish sitter watch over things and I think they go online and down load whatever. I think later tonight I'll go back into safe mode and delete game stuff. Maybe that is the problem..