crash crash crash

[sao95]

my wife has an hp, celeron type... it freezes frequently and you have to turn it off at thew case, then it takes hours to be able to turn on again withoutr the little orange (i'm thinking) light coming on, any ideas about what could be the culprit?

[JohnRoboto]

Format the drive and re-install the operating system. It's not the easiest solution, but should definately fix it.

Then make sure you have firewall and anti-virus software. Get Ad-aware to remove that pesky spy/ad-ware. Defrag and scandisk regularly.

[phlatline]

What's the operating system on ur comp? Windows is known for it's freezes, & I hear tell the ME edition is quite tempermental.

[sam]

sounds like you have a lot of things runnin in your start up menu. please give some specs of your system if you know them. try turnin off some of the prosseses that you are not using that are down by the clock. what operating system are you using

[dr_roberts49]

Before you think about formating, make sure you have all the right CDs on hand to restore your computer, and make double sure you have all your personal data backed up. I'm assuming you bought the HP with everything already installed. If that's the case, it's doubtful you have the Windows operating system, but you should have a "restore" disk, which will fully bring your computer to the state it was in when you bought it. Good luck.

Robert

[Detritus]

I don't know if formatting would fix your issue, what do you mean "turn it off at thew case" is that hitting the power button, or unplugging it or what? I might be concerned about a short? The locking up may be overheating, perhaps your powersupply is a little weak, those HP's power supplys aren't exactly durable or large.

[dunbar]

Sounds like it is time to open the case and clean out all the dustbunnies, also blow out the dust in the PSU.

[dr_roberts49]

Sam, brings up a very good point. Whenever I do work on a computer that was bought at Best Buy, CompUSA, etc., I always purge most of the junk that loads at startup. Most all of it is un-necessary, and robs your computer of resources. Getting rid of that "crap" will immediately improve performance. If you know someone who is a computer whiz, have them help you get rid of these files. There are some apps that need to run at startup, but others can be run, ONLY when you need them to.


Robert

[sao95]

i tried reinstalling thje os with the disk that came with the unit and it didn't help, the system is win 98se, has 96mb ram, celeron processor, not sure what mobo is... power supply i replaced last year as old one went out, not sure how to stop programs from loading at startup, if anyone could give a brief descript of process i'd appreciate it... i'll also give her a good cleaning as diunbar suggested, also when i say turn off i mean hit the off button, but unplugging does the same thing, could ram be an issue? 96mb isn't much but as she doesn't do much with it i didn't think it was a prob, your thoughts?

[Detritus]

Did you format when you reinstalled the OS or did you just over install the OS. If you formatted that removes the possibility of too many start-up items but just FYI Start>Run>type msconfig is the way you get to where you disable those pesky items that run every time you reboot your computer. I will wait till you give her a good cleaning before giving any more input 'cause I agree with Dunbar, that could be a big part of your problem.

This website will help you with those start-up items, I have it bookmarked and have found it very helpful...

http://www.pacs-portal.co.uk/startup_content.htm