Presario 7594 locking up

I have an old Compaq 7594 that I upgraded to 1.1 gig processor and the
stock 64 meg ram. Running a 40 gig HD with XP and the original compaq
cd rom off of the second IDE cable. (Was) running original compaq
bundled software on a 20 gig HD and an HP dvd300i burner off of the
first IDE cable. The dvd burner has been in for about 2 years. The
processor was installed about 4 months ago as well as a usb2 card and a
network card. Shortly before the upgrades the system started locking up
while online under 98. Made sure all updates were installed and had no
viruses or spyware. The locking up gradually got worse, I uninstalled
all the PCI components thinking that a conflict may have developed from
a windows update. The system still locked up on 98, never have had
problems with XP. I then fdisked and formated the 20 gig to reload the
compaq restore. The system started to reload and locked up. I assumed
the HD was the problem all along and put in the original 6 gig. I am
still locking up trying to reload. What is left? Is it a chance the IDE
controller is dying? If so, will the bios let me replace it with a PCI
card, I have a few com port cards with IDE controllers lying around.
Could it just be the inside needs clean, it is rather dusty possibly
leading to too much heat.

Heat is often the cause of unexpected system lockups. Because the system is
dusty inside, get a can of compressed air and blast all the dust bunnies out
from inside the chassis.

There could also be some degradation in the hardware chips on and off the
motherboard, leading to instability. This is expecially possible in a system
with improper ventilation, because heat is the worst enemy of electronic
components... Ben Myers

On 28 May 2005 11:44:05 -0700, wrote:

I have an old Compaq 7594 that I upgraded to 1.1 gig processor and the
stock 64 meg ram. Running a 40 gig HD with XP and the original compaq
cd rom off of the second IDE cable. (Was) running original compaq
bundled software on a 20 gig HD and an HP dvd300i burner off of the
first IDE cable. The dvd burner has been in for about 2 years. The
processor was installed about 4 months ago as well as a usb2 card and a
network card. Shortly before the upgrades the system started locking up
while online under 98. Made sure all updates were installed and had no
viruses or spyware. The locking up gradually got worse, I uninstalled
all the PCI components thinking that a conflict may have developed from
a windows update. The system still locked up on 98, never have had
problems with XP. I then fdisked and formated the 20 gig to reload the
compaq restore. The system started to reload and locked up. I assumed
the HD was the problem all along and put in the original 6 gig. I am
still locking up trying to reload. What is left? Is it a chance the IDE
controller is dying? If so, will the bios let me replace it with a PCI
card, I have a few com port cards with IDE controllers lying around.
Could it just be the inside needs clean, it is rather dusty possibly
leading to too much heat.

If you have only 64MB of RAM, it is totally insufficient for XP for
starters.

HH

wrote in message
oups.com...
I have an old Compaq 7594 that I upgraded to 1.1 gig processor and the
stock 64 meg ram. Running a 40 gig HD with XP and the original compaq
cd rom off of the second IDE cable. (Was) running original compaq
bundled software on a 20 gig HD and an HP dvd300i burner off of the
first IDE cable. The dvd burner has been in for about 2 years. The
processor was installed about 4 months ago as well as a usb2 card and a
network card. Shortly before the upgrades the system started locking up
while online under 98. Made sure all updates were installed and had no
viruses or spyware. The locking up gradually got worse, I uninstalled
all the PCI components thinking that a conflict may have developed from
a windows update. The system still locked up on 98, never have had
problems with XP. I then fdisked and formated the 20 gig to reload the
compaq restore. The system started to reload and locked up. I assumed
the HD was the problem all along and put in the original 6 gig. I am
still locking up trying to reload. What is left? Is it a chance the IDE
controller is dying? If so, will the bios let me replace it with a PCI
card, I have a few com port cards with IDE controllers lying around.
Could it just be the inside needs clean, it is rather dusty possibly
leading to too much heat.