Hardware or Software Issue?

[envisioncs]

Someone droped off their home PC today at work and asked me to take a look at it. Since they know I charge extra for this, I said ok. They had just built a new PC: MSI KT3 Ultra, AMD Processor, DDR, SB Live, GeForce4 4400 etc and well Win98. The problem they are having has stumped me. I have tested the hardware and have found nothing wrong.

The machine will still lock up (no CTL-ALT-DEL even) on rather random tasks. I noticed that CrashGuard was installed - took it off since it causes more crashes than it prevents. Little better. Then I tried to install one of his games and it freezes during the install. No errors or anything, just a freeze.

I've never had anything do this before. Any ideas on what it could be? I'm a little rusty on my 98 troubleshooting skills.

 

[Fireman]

Crash Guard does cause more crashes than it prevents, that's for sure.
From the sounds of it, I'm assuming you know enough to disable the AV when doing installs.
I built a machine for a guy using his Win98 that froze durring program installs, it turned out to be a CD ROM driver of all things. I know Windows is supposed to auto load one for you but it didn't this time. Things would start to install, get about half way and then just puke.
The simple driver fixed it.
Maybe?

 

[envisioncs]

Now I'm getting errors (didn't change anything):

DEMO32 caused an invalid page fault in module DEMO32.EXE at 017f:0043d9e3

WTF? God I hate Win98!

 

[Draknor]

Couple of things to check:

- Power supply: beefy enough? Based on what I've been reading re: Infinite Loop issues for 2k/XP, power is a big factor in system stability, esp. with all the high-power components (DDR, Athlon XP, GF, etc)

- Newest drivers and everything? (chipset/video)

- Updated BIOS?

Those are off the top of my head - another thing to check would be BIOS settings; in particular I've heard of lots of problems with AGP 4x, usually related to Via chipsets. If it's a Via chipset, check out the forums at www.viaarena.com - quite a bit of threads & posts there. Might want to try running at AGP 2x and see if that helps.

If you are still having problems, try posting some more details and I'll see if I think of anything else. Good luck!

 

[envisioncs]

While I though about i being the PS also, it looks like it was just Win98 crapping out. I slapped my old XP RC1 copy just to test things out. Runs without a hitch, and its a damn beta version of XP. RTCW played and installed great. I'm running some burn in tests now to check the stability at full load, but it all looks great. I think I will just recommend they go ahead and upgrade to XP Home. They were thinking about it anyway.

 

[earthman]

Upgrade your VIA mainboard drivers, that might help.