We're pullng our hair out over this stupid problem. Boyfriends puter: running Windows 98, 256mb RAM, Pentium 3 450Mhz, ATI Rage Fury Pro video card. Problem: Bloody thing locks almost EVERY single time he goes to open MS Word. Yes... running Office 2000 Pro. Has also been known to do this for no apparent reason. No extra windows or applications running either. Minimal progs at start up... just virus scan (McAffee... already de-bugged) and the video card control panel. Best he gets is the begining splash screen for Word before everything freezes and he re-boots. We have dropped the hardware accelerator under system properties for now... but would like to find a better solution if at all possible. Email copies of postings please as may not be able to find this page again or get back here for a bit.

Hey Dreamer, Why dont you have this check list of possible solutions......... 1. Viruses - Viruses can damage or destroy your data or computer completely. Keep any anti-virus software updated often and scan your system regularly. 2. Check out the CPU fan AND the power supply fan - You know what one is and where it is located right? The CPU may be overheating, caused by a bad or poor running fan, or your power supply is not supplying correct voltages due to a bad cooling fan. You should first, check if you need to replace the bad fan. The cover must be removed from your computer per your manuals (you have one right?) instructions. There are MANY cases, and MANY ways that are used to place cases together by manufacturers. Follow any instructions to your desktop case or tower case to properly and safely remove the cover, making SURE that power is unplugged, and your case is grounded properly for correct working conditions. Do not FORCE the case cover off the case. Is the CPU fan the problem? Is the fan not working? You may have to temporarily supply a power source to check this out VERY carefully. At this point you may want to take the computer to a repair shop, or if experienced, simply purchase a duplicate style fan replacement, and replace the CPU fan. Did this cure your problem? The power supply itself also contains a cooling fan, and the entire power supply may be replaced by purchasing a duplicate style power supply from a computer supply or from electronics stores. If either the power supply or the CPU fan were functioning fine and you did not have to replace it, then stop. (some CPU's have temperature sensors, others you can see the fan is or is not rotating, or rotating very slowly and noisily.) If your fan is fine, and you still experience freeze ups, you might have a bad CPU or motherboard, and even possibly the CPU may now be damaged by the prolonged excessive heat, or simply you may have a CPU that should not have passed quality control. (see #7 below) BUT if your not sure yet, go on. 3. Software issues - Another reason for some computer freeze ups is improper program installation, either windows 95 or windows 98 configuration, or corrupt files or associated sub files.Many new software system releases including the new Windows ME have had reported bugs, one of which was with windows 98 Second Edition, that would not allow the computer to shut down properly, after choosing to do so. Download the latest updates from http://www.microsoft.com/ first. Norton Utilities 2001 www.symantecstore.com/Pages/TBYB/index.html will go a long way in finding corrupt files and misconfigured windows setups also. If you don't have a utility, try to uninstall the very latest software programs you installed using the uninstaller (Start, settings, add new programs, add remove programs list, choose program and uninstall that software) especially if you had started noticing bugs and gliches thereafter. If nothing else helped, you may also want to reinstall the entire windows operating system. This is a big job, for expert or seasoned users, not for the novice. Before doing so you must remove internet explorer 4 or 5.5 upgrade first? You cannot usually accomplish a good reinstall if you have upgraded internet explorer after first installing your windows 95 or 98. First remove IE 4 (Win95) or IE 5.5 (win 95 or win98), then reinstall windows 95 or 98 over the top of the previous system install. If you can accomplish this successfully you will save all current data on your system, including any programs you installed after purchase. (and have not yet otherwise removed) There is no guarantee of complete success, and it might be better to make a full backup of data, reformat the hard drive, and then reload all software. If you own a Dell, Gateway, or other popular brand system, you should call their technical help first, use the recovery disk CD that came with the unit, otherwise, reload all operating software after a fresh format of your hard drive, using a hard drive utility, or the FDISK utility. You must then reinstall ALL software and restore any backup data to the software you may have made. Some CD recovery disks walk you through several options to either reload software over existing software, saving your data, or it gives you the option to format and reload all software from scratch assuming you have a backup of your personal data and programs to recover. 4. Hard Drives - An excellent Disk utility, Norton Utilities 2001, can be found at www.symantecstore.com/Pages/TBYB/index.html . This will identify any serious disk problems that your system may have, or you can do a full scandisk preferably from the Dos prompt, making sure it is a FULL scandisk to identify that you do or do not have bad sectors on your Hard Drive. If your hard drive contains bad sectors you may have to replace it, recover what you can with a backup and replace it. If it does not contain bad sectors or just a very small amount, completing scandisk fully, will usually clear up the problem, run scandisk and defrag from within windows operating system after you restart. Check scandisk often for bad sectors, if they continue, you should replace the hard drive. 5. Add-in Cards - If you have recently installed peripheral cards (network cards, video cards, modems, sound cards etc etc) you may have a defective one. If you started having freeze up problems after installing an internal card (or a USB device) First check the IRQ settings to see if you have a system conflict. Go to system devices, and click on the device manager tab, for a warning flag on any devices listed. Also you can double click on the computer icon at the top of the list, to see if any IRQ's are free, if your card requires an IRQ, try changing the irq to one of the free listed IRQ's if any. Sometimes you have to juggle the IRQ's around, try freeing up an unneeded device (com port 2 if not used is a good one to eliminate, disable in this profile) then try the freed IRQ 3. If all else fails, try uninstalling your device and reinstalling it, and it is recommended that you try the device in another free pci slot in your motherboard. Even plug and play can be tricky or faulty at times, and so can USB devices. Now check to see if the problems clear up, if not, replace the faulty card or device. If you need to replace the device, try another brand name rather than replacing with a duplicate item, as even brands can be a problem, in that some can cause conflicts with your existing computer and some won't. Check with the documentation contained in the package. 6. Memory - Memory chips can sometimes be the culprit here, especially if you started having problems just after you added more memory.!!!!! but do not replace any old memory unless you are certain that the current memory chips are faulty, download a memory check utility first. Or if you happen to own extra memory chips, swap the memory out, this would be a good test to determine if the memory IS the problem. Sometimes even the boot up memory check does not show some types of memory faults. Memory is expensive and also it cannot be assured that this will cure your freeze up problems unless the memory IS bad. Do not replace memory chips if you have no indication that they are bad, rather go on to the next option. But if you are convinced of memory problems, be sure your case is removed properly, unplugged, and grounded properly. Carefully and properly replace memory per instructions available from memory chip manufacturers or from your computer manufacturer, or motherboard manual.

1.) Ran Virus Checker... system clean. We absolutely REFUSE to download ANY updates from Microsoft, due to recent findings of LoveBug virus embeded in their updates! Been there done that with my system... not fun... not recommended. :( 2.) Fans are all good and brand new... watched the install of them myself.. cover of the case has been off for days now even. Alls good there. Bloody system sounds like a 747 with all the cooling going on in there...lol. 3.) I've lost count of how often over the past month the actual drive has been re-formatted...or how often we've re-installed Windows 98. Everything goes in just fine and we've actually devised a fast way to save all the important stuff... burn it all to CD! 4.) Scan disk comes up good. Hard drives both brand spanking new... all sectors good. 5.) No system conflicts on add-ins. Checked that too. 6.) Thought about it being memory... however logic dictates that if memory was bad it would affect EVERYTHING... and thats not the case here... just when opening the one program. Although will double check on it... just cause there have been some other strange things not related to this that that might be an answer to. I should add in here that after several tries, Word did finally open.. think it had to be attempted like three times before it did it.