my comp freezes about 1 or more times a week. when im on the internet and playig a computer game called Starcraft: Brood War my comp freeezes and then i have to pull the plug on the comp. plzhelp to fix this problem

lolz my computer does the exact same thing except it does it far more often and during the following things: starcraft, broodwar, diablo 2 expansion, norton anti virus scan, and super nintendo emulators. the thing it does is freeze up and seems to repeat the last sound made over and over kinda sounds like a thumping sound. i found disabling directdraw accelleration under dxdiag (goto run and type in "dxdiag") does help but does not eliminate the problem system info: Operating System: Microsoft Windows ME Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) 1.30 GHz Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce2 MX/MX 400 Total Physical Memory: 256 MB Free Physical Memory: 124.31 MB Motherboard Manufact.: ASUSTeK Computer INC. Motherboard Model: A7A266 not sure if ppl need any more info bout my computer, any help would be nice thx

when ever your system locks up like that you'll want to run scandisk and you should even defragment. you might want to check the size of your swap file and use the system monitor to see how much is really being used. also programs running in the background can cause problems. video, monitor, and sound card drivers can cause problems. check the games website for a patch/fix I haven't seen a game yet that hasn't needed a patch/fix. harware conflicts can cause probems too. although I'd try ruling out other things before diving into that. so more info is needed system type recent changes and upgrades problem like this can be tough for people that deal with these things evey day. hopefully it's something easy. TheGorx - Windows Help

i have tried defrag/scan disk they didnt work i am unsure of what to do for this one "you might want to check the size of your swap file and use the system monitor to see how much is really being used." tried updating sound card (cause more problems, sound just didnt work) tried updating graphics card with detonator driver or soemthing and it didnt help, never tried monitor so thats something i can do highly dout its patch because they update there patches off and on so i shuold have newest one, but worth a check i also thought it might be overheating problem but i got another fan installed and have case open and it still happens altho it has declined in frequency.

with the swap file sometimes it becomes corrupt and some game will use it no matter how much free memory you have. you'll find it in the windows folder WIN386.SWP then you can use the system monitor to see how much is in use. http://www.thegorx.net/Windows/Help/System.htm but that might have nothing to do with it. and as far as drivers go updating them isn't the main problem in most cases it's having the corrected ones loaded not just default windows drivers. which in the case of monitors happens often. Hardware driver Help also other thing to look for is if the hard drive led is lit steady when it freezes. keeping your system cool is a good idea but if your CPU has a heatsink and Fan and the heatsink was install correctly with thermal paste. an the video card has a heatsink. an the case fans are working ok you should be able to close the case it might even be cooler if it has good air flow tunneled thru case. if the system is overclocked you may needed additional cooling. but opening the case most likely won't help much. also the fact that it sounds like there a problem with the sound may have something to do with it. you might want to check the device manager in safe-mode. and see how it differs under sounds, video controllers from normal mode. then also you could check the sound and multi-media in the control panel hit the devices tab under audio devices are there more than one listing there? also that norton may be trying to update or scan at the worst possible times. you might want to have a talk with the person who set this system up. if you don't have too much experience with these things might just get worse. all this is just guessing and to try to explain every possible problem and fix would be impossible.

You may be interested in this post (the first link is SMUOD’s nice-looking HMTL version with hyperlinks, the second is the forum post with additional comments and replies) http://www.burzurq.com/forum/trevtweak.html http://www.computing.net/windowsme/wwwboard/forum/24159.html

update ur video card drivers!