Random lockups

[ares32585]

Sometimes when I'm doing stuff on the computer it will just randomly freeze up. This only happens once in a while but I wonder what's causing it. It's happened when I'm surfing on the internet w/ SETI in the background, and it's happened when using MS Works. It has NOT happened when playing any games, however. Are these just "normal" Win98 lockups?
My system:
1 GHZ AMD Athlon "T-Bird" Processor
Asus A7V
256MB PC133 Crucial SDRAM
ELSA GeForce2GTS
SB Live MP3+
Windows 98SE

 

[AKA]

Only way to tell for sure is to try and reproduce it. If it happens everytime or a high percentage of time in that particular program, then you have your answer.

Disable most of the startups in msconfig, try to reproduce problem again. If it continues, uninstall offending program and reinstall it.

 

[mariner]

I'm with A.K.A., try to reproduce the error with a minimum of things going on. Then add more processes/apps 1 at a time.

How do you get out of the lock-up? Does it lock up your keyboard? Can you do a Task Mgr thing? What kind of net connection do you have - dial-up, dsl, cable, T1, etc. Are you always online - even when using MSWorks? Are you overclocked? Are you running any utilities (e.g. CPUIdle)?

Random lock-ups can be a tough nut.