This is making me nuts. And I could go on at length about what I've tried. The short version is I have an IBM Thinkpad i1560 which suddenly started bogging down.....or at times freezing up (the cursor freezes for seconds or minutes or until I reboot).

Then other times it works fine for hours or even a day.

I thought for a while the new Eudora 5.1 upgrade did it, but it will happen using other programs. I've installed the latest video drivers, reinstalled DUN and anything else I thought might be causing problems. I've run PCDoctor from IBM which says all hardware is working fine.

The thing is, the system gets busy. With what, I don't know! When it does it may be slow shutting down. And when that happens it hangs during part of the boot-up sequence (right before it gets to the first Windows start-up screen). It's Windows 98SE by the way.

The latest thing that *seems* to be working, though it's too soon to tell for sure, is if it hangs, I go into SafeMode and *use* a program for a while. Then reboot normally and it's okay. At least for a few hours.

I'm *this* close to reinstalling Windows and everything (a 12+ hour ordeal as you know) and in 15 years of using computers I've never had to reinstall an OS.

Anyone have any firm clues or suggestions???

HELP!
Mad Dog

Mad Dog,

You say, "The thing is, the system gets busy. With what, I don't know!"

You *should know* what programs are running on YOUR system. Some people like to install every software program they own. This is a bad practice. On your ThinkPad install just what you will need and will use. There are many programs that run as resident and they use system resources which can make computers bog down, freeze and possibly crash.

You can type MSCONFIG in the RUN box and it will show you all the programs that run in the background. Some you may not need. If you don't need it - uninstall it.

One other thing which has an effect upon your system performance is disk fragmentation. Defrag your hard drive at least once a week. Even though the fragmentation might show only 4%, it could be just enough to cause a significant performance problem.

My suspicion is a trojan. Have you run a virus check lately?

By knowing what programs one should have running - one will also know what programs one should not have running. MSCONFIG will show this information.

You might also consider deleting any temp files you have, as well as emptying the recyclebin, this will raise resources along with clearing out unimportant files in MSConfig. It might keep your system from locking up.

maybe try a disc scan, then defrag....if that doesn't help re-install windows over itself...HTH

Thanks for the replies, but I'm way way ahead of you so far. I immediately (and often) scanned with up-to-date anti-virus updates. I've unclicked everything using MSCONFIG that isn't 100% necessary. I clean temp files, defrag, and disc scan every week before I back up the system. And I'm pretty scrupulous about not putting lots of crap programs on....I've been at this long enough to know better.

When I say "The system is busy" it is.....it hangs and sometimes if I Ctrl-Alt-Del to close it comes up with the blue screen saying the System is Busy. *Something* is running in the background sometimes and it's not apparent from any diagnostics, from TaskInfo2000 (which shows pertty much everything that's running as far as I know and nothing is running that shouldn't be).

Any other thoughts, folks?

Thanks,
MD

Hi Mad Dog , copied this from another post , may provide a clue .

If you are experiencing frozen screens regularly that cannot be rectified by pressing the Control + Alt + Del keys and then shutting down the application that is not responding, reboot, press the F8 key immediately after the message comes up that Windows is loading, and select the option Logged (\Bootlog.txt). After Windows has been fully loaded, use Find to search for the bootlog.txt file and double click it. This file lists how all of the system's software drivers (.sys, .exe, .vxd files ) and .dll files were loaded - as successes or failures. By looking through the list, you can easily identify a failure, and hence the device or application that might be causing any failure. Note that some drivers and .dll files will fail to load because the system does not need them, but others will fail, either because they are corrupt themselves, or because the device or application that uses them is malfunctioning. My bootlog.txt file lists the atilcd.dll file as having failed to load successfully. I used Find to search for it , right-clicked the file name, and selected the Properties tab. The Version tab of the window that came up told me that atilcd.dll is the ATI LCD driver. (I have an ATI video card installed.) An LCD driver is used for Liquid Crystal Display screens, usually found on laptops. My CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) monitor would not use this driver, so the system did not load it. This was therefore not a failure to be concerned about. If you discover that a driver or .dll file is causing problems, Windows 98 (not Windows 95 ) has a System File Checker utility that can delete and replace it, and the accessible KnowledgeBase on the Microsoft website documents every known problem with MS software, and between it and third-party hardware and software.

Also have you tried DrWatson ?

Click Start, Run.
Type "DrWatson" and press ENTER.
An icon for Dr. Watson will appear on your taskbar tray.
( Next to the time )
Double click it. From here on you can view detailed information about
your Win98 system.

Recommend putting a shortcut to Dr. Watson in your Startup group,
especially if you frequenty experience crashes, as it will
automatically log all illegal operations and invalid page
faults/general protection faults that you might get.

I've checked the bootlog at two different times and the only things that didn't load MS says shouldn't load.

I've run Dr Watson to see what was going on inside but didn't leave it running as I didn't know about the log function. Maybe it will catch it.

In the meantime, it's been running good for the past 6 hours (Photoshop, Word, FrontPage) but I just wait for the next problem.

One thought: It does appear to be running hotter than usual and the fan is running most of the time instead of once in a while...hmmmmmm

MD

Heat! Oh yeah!

One other thing; with Dr Watson you might want to temporarily put a shortcut of it in your Startup folder, so it doesn't miss anything.

I have Dr Watson in the start-up folder now. Of course the system's run fine for the past day (which is a two-week record!).

God, I hate intermittant problems......

Thanks all.....any other suggestions are welcome.

Oh yeah....I'm going to look, but is there a shareware program that can monitor temperature on an IBM Thinkpad?

Mad Dog