Quickbooks lockups?? (customer)

[John Prophet]

Ok, any ideas what would make quickbooks lock up a lot??

Here is the setup

An HP Pavillion (not sure of processor speed or type)(walmart)
Win ME, about a 10 day old fresh install, all updates.
128M Ram

Quickbooks Pro

Its on a network so that this comp saves its files on another W98 computer.

Anyway, the lady is about to flip cuz its locking up constantly....it ran fine for about 7-10 days after I did a total rebuild...then it locked up one time one day....then twice yesterday...now today its totally whack.

When it locks up and she has to reboot, she then has to go upstairs and reboot the other comp cuz it still has her logged into the other ladies quickbooks (I guess thats why, lol)

So whats the deal here?? It shouldnt be heat related cuz it ran fine for a week.

What else could it be?

They all run through a router with DHCP with a cable internet WAN.

They have some kind of setup where the router is upstairs...I think it has a 4 port switch built in....then there is a switch upstairs....then one or more of the cable goes downstairs and this particular system is on a hub with maybe 3 other systems.


Is there any way that this is network related? I mean something like the network messing with the quickbooks connecting together from the two computers? For instance something like it is fine until it releases the IP lease and then it messes up?? Or could it be possibly something on the OTHER comp..the one the quickbooks stuff is stored on??


Any quickbooks experts out there??

Of course this is one of my only business clients at this point, lol..so I definitely am interested in this stuff working correctly.

Any help or ideas appreciated, JP

(yes, I will pay you if you fix it, lol)

[omalleytrading]

Okay, at the risk of being judgemental -- for the love of god -- get rid of Win ME!

Now, what version of QuickBooks Pro are you running?

Most likely it's the network causing the problem. Check a few other things first, however:

• The 98 machine isn't set to go into power saving mode, is it?
• When the problem happens, can the ME machine browse any folders on the 98 machine?
• Can you ping the 98 machine?

Unless you're just horribly behind on updates for QuickBooks, I'd bet the network is the culprit. Peer to Peer networking on the 95 platform (98 & ME) is notoriously bad.

One last thing -- run Windows Update on both the 98 and Me machines to make sure you've got the latest OS patches. I'd bet the OS is the problem, not QuickBooks.

[John Prophet]

Well, gettin rid of WinME isnt really an option..did you see that I said it is a customer?? Lol, as in "a business"..as in they arent really trying to spring for a new OS usually.

The WinME is a fresh build with all updates...the quickbooks, I think it is Qbooks Pro 1991, but it was updated also when I reinstalled it.

The WinME machine is LOCKING UP...or nearly locking up...it either locks up solid or it lets her do ctrl-alt-delete and THEN locks up...but it is locking up while trying to save stuff to the other machine..it worked fine for about a week.

The other machine is a W98 machine but I am pretty sure its wayyyyyyyyyyy behind on updates, lol. I am sorta scared to run windows update, lol (yes, I am chicken)...seriously..in these situations you get scared to mess with something that is working...of course, it COULD be the W98 machine messing up the other somehow.


Ok, maybe this is a scenario....the WinME machine crashes cuz of some sort of memory issue...which then messes up the qbooks data..which then insures more crashes....hmm, maybe.


if I use a memory management prog on the WinME machine...like Cacheman...I wonder if that would help?


Should I try to get them to go to WinXP??

The main thing in my mind is I dont want to TRY anything that is going to cost a couple hundred bucks just to TRY AND SEE if by some miracle it fixes the situation.....we used to call that "shotgunning" in the AirForce...just replacing all the parts until something works, lol.

I can try cacheman for free almost, lol..if I am in the experimenting mode. I use ME on one of my comps at home and it hasnt been the horror I have heard described online..but wheres theres smoke, theres fire.

Maybe with it having ME and only 128M memory it is hitting the swap file really hard on quickbooks and not releasing memory or something similar....causing lockups and messed up data.


Its frustrating to me cuz I just did the whole "you need to rebuild the whole system" deal...of course usually you would think you would get at least a year of worry free computing after that.

She said she was getting a blue screen of some sort also...maybe a fatal exception??

Should I try a different stick of RAM?


Any other ideas??

JP

[John Prophet]

bump

[omalleytrading]

Well, you're in a tough situation. You're running:

• One operating system that is 5 year old, and not being updated.
• One operating system that is 3 years old, and was notoriously unstable from the start.
• One software package that is 4 years old and -- I believe -- no longer supported by the Manufacturer. This assumes QB is QB 99, not actually QB 91 as you state above.

So, my advice would be:[list=1][*]Run Windows Update on the 98 Machine. You have more to gain than to lose at this point.[*]Run Windows Update on the Me Machine[*]Install and Run Norton AntiVirus 2003 on the Me Machine[*]Install and Run Spybot Search And Destroy on the Me Machine[*]Install and Run Norton AntiVirus 2003 on the 98 Machine[*]Install and Run Spybot Search And Destroy on the 98 Machine[*]Upgrade to the newest version of QuickBooks Pro[*]Upgrade the Me machine to Windows XP Pro[*]Upgrade the 98 machine to Windows XP Pro[/list=1]

Try one step, see what happens. If you still have a problem, try the next step, and so on.

Good luck!