Win98 Stalling

[ok89]

333 is very old
now they are up to ~ 1.8
yours is equivalent to a .333

[mahieber]

Go to the <Control Panel> <system> <Performance> and make sure that you have Virtual memory turned on, and that you are letting Windows manage the memory.

If that is the case you may have a problem with your registry, especially since you have had the O/S for 3 years. Search http://www.cnet.com for a downloadable program called "System Mechanic", I believe they let you download a limited use version that can clean up your registry. If not, you can find it cheap. It is the absolute best utility (next to Kyodai) that I ever bought. I have it on every one of my 6 machines which have everything from W98 1st edition to Windows ME and it has never failed to find problems, fix them correctly, and behave.

In the "System" utilities it will scan and delete invalid entries in your directory. The directory is like a big data file that must be searched through numerous times by each program that is running. As you add programs, the registry grows, slowing down all of your programs. Ever try and "Delete" an application, and get a stupid message that the Uninstall could not properly delete all components, and that some must be manually deleted? Normally these are crappy programs that didn't know how to clean their stuff out of the registry.

One word of warning though... it has an option to delete unnecessary files. Do not let it delete all the files it identifies with the length of "0". A lot of those are needed by Windows. Do not try and delete "duplicate .dll" files unless you really know what you are doing. Same reason.

System Mechanic also lets you manage your start up files and diasble things you don't need anymore.
It "can" also speed up your internet connection if you are using a modem, since most of the Windows settings are optimized for network connection to the internet.

...and no I don't own stock or know the guys that wrote System Mechanic, after 30 years of computers I just know a good utility when I see it.

[mahieber]

333 is very old

There is nothing wrong with a P333... the 96megs are holding you back a little, but with Virtual memory, even that should be enough for W98.

Windows XP will run on the 333. Minimum recommended is 233mhz.

The new machines with ghz processors are needed if you are gaming or trying to compute the square root of pi in our lifetime, but they won't surf the internet any faster than a P200 with a good video card.

[99explorer5.0]

I have noticed that win98 and Millenium do not manage RAM as good as win2000. If you have Morpheus you can download a program called Free mem pro. That program has a few settings that you can control. It manages ram much better than windows ever could. When the ram reaches a "critical" point which you can set ... usually when you have a few megs left ... it allocates and frees it up so that your applications will have more ram available. If you download the program it is a 30 day trial but if you search you can find the registration code and register it .... but that is wrong and not nice. Or you could pay for it after the 30 days if you like it.

If you have a dial up modem then it will make minimal differance having a slow processor. But if you have a cable modem or DSL and do alot of downloading and surfing at the same time. The differance in performance is like night and day. It all depends on what you use your comtpuer for and what programs you use.

[mahieber]

The human being is the best computer we can place in space, and it is the only one that can be mass-produced by unskilled labor.

Werner Von Braun

640k of RAM is all that anyone will ever need.

Bill Gates

If engineers that design buildings, designed them the way programmers write computer programs, the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization.

My Coffee Cup

[99explorer5.0]

Hmm that last quote is wrong ... The building only has to be compatable with itself. Where as a comtpuer program has to be compatable with many differnt operating systems and differnt hardware. Simple programs can take years to write

But that would be somethign to watch a pecker destroy civilization. I mean woodpecker.