My apologies first off because this is long. My computer is home made: PC-968A Med Tower Case, Soyo SY-6VBA 133 MB, AOpen VGA video card (drivers & utilities include PT75 and PV75), Sound Blaster PCI128, Supra Install - modem?, 128 MB PC133 and 128MB PC100 (new) memory. This system started out with 64MB memory and 3.2 Gig Harddrive running Windows 98. It's locked up from the start. Only a few times at first then it started getting worse. A (tech?) (from a really small town) upgraded the memory to 192MB and got rid of Windows 98 and put on Windows ME. Still locked up. Finally I got another tech to look at it and he upgraded to 256MB memory and got rid of Windows ME and installed Windows 2000 Pro and put in the old hard drive from another of my computers so now it has one hd 6.4 gig and the old 3.2 gig. Still locks up. Mainly when online. I replaced the cpu fan thinking it may be getting hot. Still locks up. So now should I maybe look at the power supply? How can I tell how much wattage I have? A few people have said it sounds like the processor or motherboard. Please send help fast. This is actually my mom's computer and she can't last too long without her email. BTW, that's all that's done on this computer - email. Thanks so very much, Carol

You can go here and download Doc Memory Tester to eliminate possible bad memory: http://www.simmtester.com/PAGE/products/doc/d ocinfo.asp We use it on the bench a lot to check out installed memory, works like a champ. It will have you make a boot disk and install itself to it, then you simply boot from the disk and run the test. Is your computer in a cabinet or something else that would restrict the air flow into the computer itself? I've seen a lot of people put thier computers in some pretty tight spaces, which can cause them to overheat and lock up. Also, you can start removing periphs one by one (ie. cd-rom, modem, NIC, floppy) and see if one of them is causing a problem by process of elimination. You can also look for a Hard Drive testing utility from the manufacturer of your Hard drive. I doubt it's your HD going out, by it wouldn't hurt to test it.

Thanks for your quick response. I'll do that memory tester. So when I boot to the floppy I'll need to get into setup and change to boot from floppy? I'm not too 'keen' on these computer fixes. No, the computer's not in a small space. I've got it on my desk with the side off even and it still locks up. What about the power supply? Think I need to check it? Thanks, Carol

Well, I went to get the memory tester and dowloaded the user guide and discovered I can't use it because I'm running Windows 2000. Any other suggestions? Thanking you in advance

Hi Try going to google and search for memtest 86, I used it to find my bad memory, only took 15mins to find my bad memory, it works with XP, but has to be used under DOS It will create a boot disk, restart the machine and will start the tests for you, keep in mind the ta the test is continuous, let it finishes upto 100% then press ESC key, make sure it come sup with NO errors not 1 or 2 but none, if it finds 1 error it's bad memory, my bad memory came up with 10,500 errors in 10 mins lol memtest 86 is the best tester around, works perfectly Goodluck Zero Cool

The motherboard being a Soyo, the processor may be getting too much voltage (Vcore). The processor voltage (Vcore) may be higher than 1.75V (Athlon T-Bird) or 1.70V (Pentium III Coppermine) or 2.0V (Pentium III Katmai)

BTW, if your Pentium III is 600 mhz or less, it's a Pentium III "Katmai". For more information about your motherboard, please go to: http://www.soyo.com.tw