John the WebTV Man wrote:
> OK...how about an old [maybe not that old] computer problem? I am
> prepping a Compaq Presario 5000 [700 MHz, 256Mb RAM, Win2K Pro] for my
> son-in-law. Everything runs good, all loaded with all the needed Win2K
> updates, Office 2K, IE/OE6, etc]...but it has a problem!! After about an
> hour using the Internet, it freezes...no Mouse, no Keyboard, no response
> at all...last screen fully visible, PC fans and power supply still
> running. Strangely, it is apparently NOT a thermal/time problem as it
> can sit for hours downloading Internet updates, but only seems to happen
> with changing screens, pages, clicking links, etc. The only problem that
> I seem to have noted is that a lot of the PC functions are using the
> same IRQ11 [a problem?]. Any ideas on what to look for and how to
> identify the problem? TIA...John
>

You could test the processor and memory with Prime95. When prompted to
"Join GIMPs" or "Torture Test", select the Torture Test option. You
can stop and quit the program, if no errors are detected in a
few hours of usage. The program stops on the first error it finds,
and if it stops rather quickly (couple minutes), then you'd suspect
a processor or memory problem.

http://www.mersenne.org/gimps/p95v255a.zip

256MB seems a relatively small amount of memory. I have
Win2K on a machine with 1GB of memory, and at bootup,
Task Manager shows 260MB in use. (With an AV program
running in the background.) I expect with a smaller
amount of memory available, Win2K won't be quite as
wasteful.

You could leave Task Manager open, while surfing the
Internet, and see what the free memory looks like
as time passes.

Some motherboards that use Slot 1 processor modules,
have a problem with the connector. Sometimes, pulling
the processor and reseating it, then securing the
processor in place, will provide temporary relief.
You can try that, and see if it runs better for a
few days.

For a video card test, you could try the demo loop on
3DMark2001SE. But with 256MB of memory available, I
don't know if that would load OK or not. If Prime95 is
passing, I'd want to find something to load up the
video card, and see how sensitive it is to a workout.

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download99.html

There are some older video card benchmarks, but they don't
sustain a test for very long, and I don't think they can be
set in a loop.

When a computer appears to freeze, one test you can do,
is try pinging it from a second computer. You can use
"ping <ip_address>" from a DOS window (command prompt),
to see if the frozen computer is really frozen. If the
machine answers a ping, then you know the processor
is in fact still running. That may tell you the problem
is just with the video, and a frozen display subsystem.

Paul