Ok, what's wrong with my home computer?

[Nintendoofah64]

Here's a computer problem that's really bugging me:
My computer will work fine for a while but after it's been on for about an hour it'll freeze and remain stuck like that for a few minutes then it'll unfreeze for a short time then it'll freez again and unfreeze. It will keep doing this until you restart the computer.

Here's the specs (I dont think anyone has a computer this old)
1998 Pinacle computers
Intel pentium 2 Processor Running @ 266 mhz
About 200 mb ram
S3 virge videocard With 4 Mb of ram
sound card doesn't work
1997 13inch crt Sony monitor
Working 3.5inch floppy drive
2 usb 1.1 slots

Would anyone know a cheap or free way to get rid of this irritating problem for good?

[DarkHououmon]

I had a computer even older. It had only 95 MB of RAM, about, and 4 GB storage or something.

My only guess is either your computer has a virus or viruses that are slowing it down or it's just simply old and it might need either reformatting (or is it just formatting?) or needs to be replaced. I'd wait until other people respond to this topic before I make a decision if I were you. It's always good to get a second opinion. Someone else here might have a better idea of how to help you.

For reformatting, this should be free, I think, if you have the CD with the operating system on it. I could be wrong. I haven't reformatted myself, so I don't know if there's other things you'd have to do first.

If it's a virus, you can get free antivirus online. Since there are rogue antivirus (they are viruses themselves) out there, here's some legit antivirus that are all free: AVG, Avast, Comodo, Panda Cloud, Avira free edition, and ClamWin. Of those, AVG is the most popular I think.

[landbeforetimelover]

The computer you described can technically run Windows XP but I doubt it is, right?  Older versions of Windows have some severe security breaches that Microsoft never bothered to fix.  Go download Ubuntu and load that on there.  At least it's a modern secure OS.  Or if you just can't break away from Windows, there's a really nice copy of Windows 2000 Professional floating around the internet with modern security patches that's been stripped of all the bloat.  It'll run faster than any version of 95/98 and be a thousand times more secure.  

I'm guessing it's probably software related but it could also be your hard drive.  If there's a severely corrupt system file that needs to be accessed on a regular basis and there are bad sectors on the drive, it could cause the freezing you describe.  Now people always say "my computer crashed" or "my computer freezes" but they're rarely very specific.  Tell me, are you able to move the mouse around when it "freezes?"  

Actually the problem you're describing where it freezes then operates normally then freezes again really sounds like a problem with the sectors on the hard drive to me.  But take my suggestion about a new OS too.  Go ahead and load a new OS.  If problems persist, replace the hard drive.  

As for old computers, that's nothing.  I had to contend with crap like the 504MB hard drive barrier.  Here's an excerpt from the following website:

http://www.dewassoc.com/kbase/hard_drives/...ze_barriers.htm

The 1,024 Cylinder (504 MiB / 528 MB) Barrier

The most troubling of the hard disk barriers effecting standard IDE/ATA hard disks was the 504 MB limitation. This particular barrier began surfacing in systems in 1994. Given the larger hard disks available today, and the fact that this barrier occurred several years ago, its relevance is more historical than anything else. Many of you who are relatively new to personal computers, or at least the technical aspects of them, may not be aware of how troubling this large disk barrier was. It was a unique experience for users and technicians alike who believed that barrier limitations had been conquered.

As the result of this barrier, but only under certain circumstances, a hard disk with a size over 504 MB will appear as having only 504 MB. This results from the combination of the geometry-specification limitations of the IDE/ATA standard and the BIOS Int 13h standard. The 504 MB barrier is alternatively referred to as the 528 MB barrier, depending on whether you are looking at binary or decimal megabytes.

This barrier, and most of those that followed it that were entirely BIOS related, were eliminated in new BIOS firmware routines as out lined in a standards document released by the Technical Committee T13.

In later years as I got some super super old computers into my shop (I'm a technician myself) I encountered other even more infuriating barriers.  I'm an expert at ancient technology and can even work on computers older than 1985.  Shops don't typically work on anything older than 10 years but just a few days ago someone brought in a computer from 1987 and I fixed the sucker.  And that's not a rare occurrence.  You'd be surprised how many people have ancient technology.  And it's great because you can charge 'em out the butt for it since no one works on that stuff anymore.

[oogaboo]

Dial-up is a common internet alternative in Africa. I'm not surprised that people still have computers that old but aren't those Operating systems and PCs' discontinued?

Now for the freezing part does your computer run slow? Have you run disk cleanup? Have you defrag the hardrive? How many programs run at once?
I'd increase the RAM and upgrade the hard drive.

I would also perform a clean (custom) install from WIN98 to XP. I believe Windows 2000 pro would be a good choice too, but I don't think their is anymore security updates for it.

That's my suggestions.
 

[Belmont2500]

I still have my old Windows 98 Computer and it still works fine, anyhow there is a progan you can download called "Cleanup!" if disk space has anything to do with it, but it could be viruses or a problem with the operating system itself.

[Adder]

Mine does this every once and while. I just shut it off, and turn it on whenever it does that. Every several months or so. I hate it, but I'm used to it. Mine was made in 1994, before I was even born, still works good enough to use everyday.

(The tower, not the monitor.)

[landbeforetimelover]

Now for the freezing part does your computer run slow?

LOL.  Just...LOL.  Is a computer with 266mhz slow?  LOL.  Taking 5+ minutes to boot with a computer like that would be normal, especially if it has XP.  And I wouldn't recommend upgrading to XP as you barely have the requirements to run it.  I you could upgrade the processor to 448mhz (the max speed for a PII if I remember correctly) and up the ram to 256mb or 512mb.  I'd highly recommend Ubuntu as you won't be able to do anything but browse the net on that thing anyway and since it's so old you won't have any problems with drivers.  Of course, people have reported the lite version of Windows 2000 I was talking about running smoothly with 16mb of ram so maybe you'd like to go with that.  It has Service Pack 4 and all modern security patches have been applied to it.  PM me and I'll send you a link.

[DarkHououmon]

A computer running at 266 Mhz could probably still run pretty fast, though not as fast as more modern computers, I'm sure. I've had a computer even older than that and I can assure you it did not take 5+ minutes to reboot it. I think the processor was around the same or even slower, probably around 100 something Mhz. I can't say for certain, though. I need to find the model online.

Yeah Ubuntu may be a good choice, I agree. Ubuntu is not as demanding on the system and can run in low powered PCs. It's also designed differently from Windows so it doesn't slow down as easily, plus you don't have to worry about viruses or defragging. The only thing I have to say about this, though, is make sure you are prepared. Jumping from Windows to Ubuntu is a big change. Plus, you have to make sure you have a network card compatible with it, otherwise you won't be able to connect to the internet. I'd recommend reading up on Ubuntu first before making the change.

[Nintendoofah64]

I found out last night that a lot of dust was on the insides, so I cleaned it out and the computer seems to be working fine now, it hasn't froze the times I've been playing it. The virus scan says there isn't a virus on my computer.

thanks anyway for those who helped. Hopefully I dont get another problem for quite a long time.

[Adder]

I found out last night that a lot of dust was on the insides, so I cleaned it out and the computer seems to be working fine now.

Dust does that. It will screw up the whole tower/or monitor if there is any dust on the fan. That's happened with me alot, if the fan gets even only a few spots of dust on it, it will have trouble doing what it should.

[Nintendoofah64]

I found out last night that a lot of dust was on the insides, so I cleaned it out and the computer seems to be working fine now.

Dust does that. It will screw up the whole tower/or monitor if there is any dust on the fan. That's happened with me alot, if the fan gets even only a few spots of dust on it, it will have trouble doing what it should.

I guess so, dust in old Nintendo cartiges keeps them from working unless you clean em out with  a Q-tip.

[DarkHououmon]

The XP computer we still have got filled with dust once and wouldn't even turn on. Even after it was cleaned out, the dust caused some permanent damage, the most notable being the inability to use the CD Drive. Computer wouldn't recognize the disc anymore. It's a good idea to clean out PCs once a while, perhaps once a year or so.