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Freeze ups with windows 98! HELP!!

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by rodman 1 view

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As you can tell with my problems from the last few days, I am pretty annoyed with win98. I put a system together and could not get win98 to install. I recieved various error messages and posted the most frequent here. I decided to install win98 by using my other computer so I swapped out the hard drives and boom win98 installed. I took the new drive to the new tower and try to finish up and whenever I try to install the drivers for the specific pieces it starts the installation and then freezes. I have tried various pieces of hardware and have the same results. I also tried in safe mode but since the cd isnt accessible in safe mode I have to restart in normal mode and then all over again. Anyone with some great knowledge would be helpful as I have ran out of ideas. Thanks

16 replies

by xxx123

Installing W98 on some other machine and swapping hard drives introduces too many variables into an already troublesome situation. When I have a problem like this, I strip the situation down to the bare bones.

That means pull everything out ofthe PC you built except the video card, hard drive, the CD-ROM drive (hopefully it's IDE, not SCSI or proprietary) and the floppy drive. That means no sound card, no network cards, no special cards for scanners and other devices, no modem card, etc. The idea here is to minimize the possibility for IRQ conflicts and similar issues. Just a basic machine with a keyboard, monitor and mouse.

Then start your windows 98 install. On boot-up, it probably wouldn't hurt to stop off in the CMOS settings and let the BIOS re-detect the IDE drives in case you somehow got some flaky parms in there by swapping drives around.

As you step thru the install, if it freezes pay attention to WHERE the freeze occurs. You need some clues. Do you have abent pin on the IDE chain? Is the memory flaking out? Stuff like that. If all goes well, then add ONE DEVICE AT A TIME until you get everything you want going.

Good Luck!

by rodman

I removed the modem again, fdisked and formatted the hard drive. I used my regular cdrom instead of the cdrw and tried to no avail. Then I decided to format the drive again and this time I xcopied the win98 cd to folder c:\win98. From there I typed setup and went through the process but when it got to copying win98 files to computer I got a generic installer error, message SU99407 ADDREG=processing error(0x197).
Another time I got SUWIN error occured. Ignore or cancel. I hit cancel then SUWIN casued general protection fault in module setupx.dll at 0003:758D. When it jumped back to DOS i recieved: Standard Mode: Bad Fault in MS DOS extender
fault:000d stack dump: 02c4 0000 0070 Raw fault frame ec=02ac ip=244b cs=0053 fl=3013 sp=00f2 ss=004b
once again thanks for all the help.

by faith

Sorry - Link did not post correctly, remove the space before the 36.ASP at the end.

Oh, incidentally, you can search Microsoft's website for such error messages as you're experiencing and they help tremendously.

by rodman

Just wondering what the easiest way of troubleshoooting which piece of hardware this could be. Im going to check out the website after work. It is 6:30 am here(east coast) and Ill try at 4pm
thanks

by rbelvedere

I had this problem as well it ended up being a motherboard TWICE. I did a favour for a client of mine and tried to install NT for him, then 2000 then 98 all failed. The shop he bought it from said I did not know anything. I took outall the cards and put in an old Asus me99 board,and then used his cards and dimms. Like magic it worked.
Have a good one,
Ralph...........

by chrisborden1

If you are not using onboard video and are using an AGP card..make sure the BIOS is set to use AGP...default is usually PCI

by jabbott

I had this problem once before...
Check the BIOS settings on your new PC, if virus protection is enabled, you won't get 98 to install.

by ednlorriecl

sounds elementary but what alot of us fail to do is check all cables and power cords. check these things first then move on to the more complicated things. I have sen ribbon cables put in backwards and things like that cuase all sotrs of problems. Igenerally remind my friends to check these first and get the comment"I forgot do you think that could really be the problem" and then it turns out to be right. If you are not having a problem accessing the hard drive itself, then check to make sure the BIOS is set up right. Then check your memmory, make sur you have enough and that it is all good.
if this doesn't help let me know and we can try some other things

TIE
blackstone

by crusader_rabbit

I've run across this on a couple of pc's... and it will cause bald spots from pulling your hair out! One area is that during loading, sometimes WIN98 loses comms with the cd-rom drive. I usually partition/format the hard drive (with system files) from a boot floppy (which also loads cd drivers) then copy the WIN98 CD (less the non-required folders) to a WIN98 Folder on the new drive and then start the 98 setup from there. This way during some of the communication problems, the cpu doesn't have to worry about the cd-rom drive and the installation goes normal... plus you now have the files necessary if you add protocols or printers or whatever without having to go dig up the install cd.

by cindy

This problem can be caused by alot of different components. Since I don't know all of the model numbers of your new system; I'll list the number one cause that I've ran across.

I've seen this many times with new systems. It has always been the memory. Even though the system "tests" the memory at boot up, it doesn't do a block by block test. I would try pulling the memory from your working system and trying the install. If it works, then you need to return your memory. If it doesn't, then you should start with the motherboard manufacturer's website and check for bios updates, etc. They may also have a fix listed.

by alanc

I am not sure I have seen all the posts on this thread... so, forgive me if I missed something.

It seems you were able to have the CD work and run the system in DOS to copy the Win98 CD. This tells me that most of the basic hardware is working. This should let you load a memory tester and run it. There are some around on the net. Once you eliminate memory check the motherboard. The BIOS dates are important. ASUS (ASUS is not the only one - I like ASUS - others make mistakes too) has some versions that had ATA problems. They booted fine using ATA66 but when Windows tried to use the ATA100 mode changing problems started. I would get different errors with each attempt.

Run searches on Google for your hardware. Google now has the Deja's news groups indexed and rare info can often be found in those groups. http://groups.google.com/

Good Luck

by fcsihas

Hello Rodman,
You failed to state what type of computer you have installed your OS. This is very important. I can only advise you that you should check the BIOS first. Have it flashed for the latest upgrade. For example, Compaq requires this before installs and after OS installs, running the proprietory MDACS. MDACS and BIOS updgrades are fairly overlooked. With these two items out of the way, installing the OS is a lot easier. You will need to download the extractable files from another computer obviously this is understood. Hope this help. Regards, Frank

by tjapkesg

As someone else already suggested, remove anything from the system that isn't absolutely essential to getting the system up and running and do steps one at a time. I would even suggest taking out any extra RAM (especially if they aren't identical or possibly mismatched), or swapping the RAM with known good memory if available.

The CPU fan and power supply fans are both things that are easy to check and are possible culprits, especially if your problems start to occur after the system has a chance to warm up, giving components an opportunity to overheat.

You should also want to check your motherboard settings. If the CPU settings are wrong, the CPU may overheat regardless of the existence of a working fan and heatsink. While you're at it, check you BIOS settings. Turn off things you don't need, such as COM and LPT ports. You can also disable the L2 cache just as a troubleshooting step. I occasionally reset the BIOS to default or fail safe settings

I would also test thesystem with another power supply. You don't have to 'replace' the existing one, just plug another one in temporarily.

As a last resort, take the motherboard out of the chassis, and test everything 'out-of-the-box'. This makes it easy to swap parts quickly and you may find that there was a problem with how it was mounted. I generally use the anti-static bags the components came in for this, including the bag and box for the motherboard (the box is used to elevate the motherboard, to allow clearance for the cards).

Any known good parts you can use to swap in for testing, try... one at a time.

I hope this helps. These steps have never failed to find the problem for me. You'd be surprised how often just taking it apart and re-assembling can clear up a problem.

Good Luck!
- Glenn

by rodman

I just disabled my L1 cache and tried to reinstall win98 and so far so good. It made it past what it usually freezes up on. Just need to know if I have L1 cache disabled and my problems are no longer what that means. Does it mean that my CPU is bad or does that mean something else is wrong? I dont know what this could be. thanks for all the help

by im4eval8

Whhile installing win98 on a friends computer I had a problem with setup starting getting to the first response screen and the installation would freeze. After pulling out what little hair I have left I went to the Bios on a friends suggestion and disabled Virus protection.

On another occasion for reasons i have yet to determine i could not do a traditional from CD install. Copy the win98 folder from the cd to a new directory on your hard drive when complete change to the new directory and type setup this will bypass cd problems and should allow you to install in safe mode this will also allow you to install new devices without needing to put in you windows 98 cd every time.

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