PC hangs during Woosh surfing after new W98se install

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greengeek

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#14398 2-Jul-2007 08:18

Hi, please don't laugh, I still love W98se.
I just reloaded the operating system to a fresh harddisk and loaded the Woosh software and connected no problems. However, after I have been surfing for a minute or two the whole PC hangs and I have to power off/on. (If I don't use the Woosh connection the PC runs happily forever)
I am guessing that the fresh install of W98 loads an old .dll or something, which might cause a conflict with the Woosh software, but wondered if anyone had experienced something similar. I tried to get a newer software CD from Woosh (mine came with the original modem about 2 years ago) but they said no newer files are available.
Any thoughts will be appreciated. thanks

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Mad Scientist
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#76539 2-Jul-2007 08:38

hi i used to have win 98 se. and yes after about 30-60 mins of surfing (with any DIALUP provider) it used to hang and needed restart. it was our believe after reading a few articles that win 98 was incapable of recycling its resources (memory, etc etc) and once it's full it doesn't know how to dump/release unneeded data and it just hangs. but after 2 minutes? hmmm maybe adsl means the mystery resources are consumed at a faster rate?

sorry i'm not sure if (1) our problems are related and (2) i've got the correct diagnosis

grant_k

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#76550 2-Jul-2007 09:25

The best idea is to use a modem with an Ethernet connection when running Win 98. I remember seeing that Woosh have a router available with an Ethernet port, so I would suggest giving that a try.

All of our PCs at the office are still running Win 98se for compatibility with some old accounting software we are trying to get a few more years out of.

We have an ADSL router with Ethernet port which is shared through an 8-port switch and don't have any problems at all with reliability of Win 98se. My PC and one other are left running 24/7 so I can log in to them remotely. Every few weeks I get around to rebooting them if strange things happen. But it's pretty rare to see any problems. Win 98se is the most reliable version of Windows prior to XP but you do need a hardware firewall between it and the internet, or you are asking for trouble.

Actually, I did a fresh install of Win 98se at my nephew's place during the weekend. He had an old PC which his school had chucked out because they couldn't figure out how to enable the mouse port. That was an easy challenge for this young up-and-coming geek and he had it sorted very quickly. He needed my help though to hack into the system and get rid of the Administrator Lock-down which the school had installed. Win 98se will do the job for a while until his parents get around to shelling out and buying their kids a decent PC with Vista or whatever.

barf

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#76598 2-Jul-2007 14:52

first of all, the win98se kernel has problems managing about 64mb of memory. This was fixed in Windows ME and there is an unofficial service pack that takes alot of ME and 2k improvements and forces them back into 98.

I suggest disabling 'NETBIOS over TCP/IP' on the Woosh connection's TCP/IP properties aswell, this will make it less of a target for worms on the Internet. Otherwise use a firewall as Grant suggests.

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grant_k

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#76606 2-Jul-2007 15:45

barf: first of all, the win98se kernel has problems managing about 64mb of memory.

All the PCs running Win98 at our office have 256MB of RAM. Perhaps that is why we didn't have any problems.

barf

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Ultimate Geek

#76610 2-Jul-2007 16:06

sorry that was a typo. about = above
I highly recommend the unofficial service pack in any case

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greengeek

19 posts

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#76653 2-Jul-2007 20:24

joker97:
hi i used to have win 98 se. and yes after about 30-60 mins of surfing (with any DIALUP provider) it used to hang and needed restart. it was our believe after reading a few articles that win 98 was incapable of recycling its resources (memory, etc etc) and once it's full it doesn't know how to dump/release unneeded data and it just hangs. but after 2 minutes? hmmm maybe adsl means the mystery resources are consumed at a faster rate?

sorry i'm not sure if (1) our problems are related and (2) i've got the correct diagnosis

Thanks for the suggestion. Initially I thought, no, that can't be it, but then I remembered I had swapped memory cards with my other machine so I better go back and check what memory size I'm using. I have a nasty feeling it won't be enough. Thanks

greengeek

19 posts

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#76657 2-Jul-2007 20:35

Grant17: The best idea is to use a modem with an Ethernet connection when running Win 98. I remember seeing that Woosh have a router available with an Ethernet port, so I would suggest giving that a try.

All of our PCs at the office are still running Win 98se for compatibility with some old accounting software we are trying to get a few more years out of.

We have an ADSL router with Ethernet port which is shared through an 8-port switch and don't have any problems at all with reliability of Win 98se. My PC and one other are left running 24/7 so I can log in to them remotely. Every few weeks I get around to rebooting them if strange things happen. But it's pretty rare to see any problems. Win 98se is the most reliable version of Windows prior to XP but you do need a hardware firewall between it and the internet, or you are asking for trouble.

Actually, I did a fresh install of Win 98se at my nephew's place during the weekend. He had an old PC which his school had chucked out because they couldn't figure out how to enable the mouse port. That was an easy challenge for this young up-and-coming geek and he had it sorted very quickly. He needed my help though to hack into the system and get rid of the Administrator Lock-down which the school had installed. Win 98se will do the job for a while until his parents get around to shelling out and buying their kids a decent PC with Vista or whatever.

Thanks. I'm glad I'm not the only one who still has a use for W98. I do have an ethernet cable that could connect me to the Woosh modem, but I would really like to get it running reliably via the USB cable I am using at present. My little old laptop does not have a built-in network port, and I would prefer not to fit a PCMCIA network card if I can avoid it. I do have another laptop (a Dell instead of Toshiba like this one) which is also running W98se and connecting to the modem via USB (actually a different Woosh modem now that I think about it), so I feel the USB should work ok once I sort the issue out. I might try the other Woosh modem and see what happens. cheers

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greengeek

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#76663 2-Jul-2007 21:45

barf: sorry that was a typo. about = above
I highly recommend the unofficial service pack in any case

Hi, the service pack looks like a great idea. I'm struggling to get the download to work unfortunately...it cuts out after only a minute or two, and the other mirror sites fail totally (doing the download on my W2k desktop, which runs Woosh perfectly). I will have to keep trying.

greengeek

19 posts

Geek

#77399 9-Jul-2007 10:25

Update:
The unofficial service pack loaded up ok, and looks like a worthwhile addition, but unfortunately did not cure my problem.
It turns out I have 80Mb ram, 32Mb inbuilt and a 48Mb add-on. I am guessing the memory is not my problem because I now have two of these Toshiba 470CDT laptops, with different mem configurations, and both show the same issue.
I am now tending towards thinking that these laptops might have some sort of USB peculiarity, or that the Woosh software has some strange incompatibility with fresh W98se installs after the modem has gone through a firmware upgrade.
I wish there was some way to reset the modem back to its original firmware.
Or some way to find a more recent .dll to overwrite whichever one of the fresh W98 .dlls is too old to run successfully with the new modem firmware.

Anyway, when I make further progress I will post back to complete the topic. Thanks everyone for your help.

Rickles

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#77426 9-Jul-2007 12:52

greengeek,

Just realised that you are using laptops, and I had a similar problem with an HP Pavillion.

I can't remember how with a Win98 machine (too long ago <g>), but go to the Device Manager and in the USB ports settings ensure that there are no power saving options selected ... some laptops close down their USB ports after a certain time and they don't always come back online !!

R.

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#77478 9-Jul-2007 17:10

off topic i know but is there any way to plonk the old win95 shell back in after you use that unofficial service pack? I have my own incarnation of 98lite on the modified thin client i'm currently using as a main box. Scary. The old flat mate in my last house decided to magpie the parts from my old p4 that i had lying about.

11w pc's rule!

greengeek

19 posts

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#77651 10-Jul-2007 18:55

paradoxsm: off topic i know but is there any way to plonk the old win95 shell back in after you use that unofficial service pack? I have my own incarnation of 98lite on the modified thin client i'm currently using as a main box. Scary. The old flat mate in my last house decided to magpie the parts from my old p4 that i had lying about.

11w pc's rule!

Hmmm...don't know. Did the svc pack strip the W95 shell out totally? Maybe all you need to do is a shell swap by running 98lite again? Might be just a damaged registry entry.
It was my plan to eventually install the 98lite micro config just to see if it is possible to still run Woosh, once I get the Woosh software to run under 98se full install, but even that is proving a challenge. Love the speed of the 95 shell. Ideal for the older hardware that I run.
Whats a 11w pc?

freitasm

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#103090 5-Jan-2008 21:16

I am unlocking this as requested by the OP.

paradoxsm

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#103101 5-Jan-2008 22:53

It's a "thin client" which had been modified running off a plug pack which uses only 11watts.

I had installed the unoffcial patch to try and get USB mass storage working.

I eventutally did the shell swap manually in DOS and it worked fine afterwards.

I'm no longer using woosh so cannot help there sorry.

drajk

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#103117 6-Jan-2008 09:21

i'm not sure whether you are using USB or Ethernet to connect the Woosh modem.
I had three Gigabyte motherboards with Hyperthreading CPUs repeatedly stall and then have their USB ports killed permanently - I didn't know what did it but then read a couple of posts about Woosh Modems causing problems when connected by USB if the CPU was a hyperthreading enabled chip. Once I changed to Ethernet connection (and yet another identical motherboard) I had no ongoing problems with stalling or with USB ports dying.

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