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Flaky PC Performance

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by cmhjon

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I recently purchased 4 new HP Vectra VL 550MHz PC's configured with Windows 98SE. These boxes were basically a shell. The internal hard drive, CD-ROM, RAM, 3COM NIC and the likes were added by our reseller (they did not come installed by HP). After receiving the PC's, I completed a typical install of Office XP, and some various other programs. I have been experiencing all kinds of problems with them since. For example, at times when I open a program like Excel, Excel stops responding. WhenI print from Word, Word sometimes stops responding. I have intermittent problems accessing our Accounting system and other times it works. I have shut down problems where I have to end any and all tasks to get it to shut down (short of pressing the power key). Does anyone have any thoughts on this? These PC's are just too flaky. Is it the OS? The PC? Help!

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by ebob

This is always a tough one, even in person. However, I would take one of those boxes and go through it one component at a time.

For example, try uninstalling the NIC, both software and hardware. Shut down, physically re-install it and load the drivers (P&P should kick in). Check the results.

Same for your VGA, etc.

Obviously go through the Device Manager and look for possible conflicts.

And even more obviously, make sure your patches for all drivers, software and the O/S are up to date.

Oh, and sometimes it's worth it to just go through and reseat ALL boards, memory, etc. While you're at it, check that the RAM are in the "right" slots.

by cmhjon

Thank you for the response but unfortunately, in addition to clearing the CMOS, flashing the BIOS and host of other things, I am still having problems :-(

by grbeckmeyer

On one of the PC's, go to the Microsoft website, move the mouse over the 'downloads' menu item, then select Windows update. Click the 'Product updates' link to download and install all the MS critical updates for the system. There were lots of problems with 98SE shutdown issues, the patch should be one of the critical updates.
You might also try updating the NIC driver and even the video driver.

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