Computer Freezes after time of use.

[Xeniczone]

I have a Gateway Essaential 933c mother board and the cpu is the same as it was.

I have not over-clocked or anything like that.

I was haveing issues and my computer keeped pauseing I thought the cpu wasn't cooling correctly so I got a new heatsink, but it continued to do it so I got a new case that was made to cool a pentium 4 that is much faster then this 933mhz pentium 3.
I have tried a lot of different OSes on it and they all suffer the same thing Suse Linux 10.0, Mandriva Linux 10, Windows 98, Windows Xp, Windows Vista (beta 1) they all pause after a certain time of use so I know it isn't the os. It is currently running on windows 98.

Can anyone tell me what is causing it to pause?

Specs:
Intel Pentium 3 933mhz
256mbs Ram
20gb hard drive
dvd-rom drive

 

[Vigilante]

My first guess after heat would be bad RAM.

Download and run memtest86 on it for a good few hours. http://www.memtest86.com/

After that I'd suspect bad hard drive.

And lastly, just because the CPU is cool, doesn't mean it is without error. But try testing the above two first.

Good luck

 

[Xeniczone]

I couldn't get the program to run this computer doesn't have a floppy drive so i burnt the iso to a disk. (yes i used software that burns the image)

So since this computer has froze before I had it and installed my memory into it I thought that memory that was already in it could have been bad so i removed it. I'm testing it now by playing halo on it trying to put a load that would use a lot of memory.

If the memory was the problem that is going to tick me off because I bought the new case and the new heat sink just because i had 1 stick of bad memory. puke:

 

[Vigilante]

Well let us know how the test goes. It should run for a fairly long time. A couple hours for 256mb, or just let it run about 5 passes.

 

[Xeniczone]

*solved*

Thanks everyone it was a bad memory stick. Kinda sad really I bought at least 85 dollars worth of cooling stuff and a new case when all I had to do was remove one of the memory sticks

But I know it is working now it used to only run for at least 30 mins now I've been running it for 4 hours so I think it is working again.

It only has 128mbs of ram in it now I had to take one 128mb stick out and that is my only stick of pc133 I have I have about 4 in my mac (512mbs) 1 in my k6-2 (128mbs) now my pentium 3 only has 1 but it is worth haveing 128 less memory instead of 1 less computer.

 

[Vigilante]

Cool beans dude.

Get some more RAM ASAP if you want to play the game for MORE then 4 hours

 

[N3051M]

and anything that gives you better cooling is always a plus no matter the cost.. so dont stress

 

[Xeniczone]

Get some more RAM ASAP if you want to play the game for MORE then 4 hours

I will have to do that, windows likes to full up ram for some reason with out removing it. For now I have set up 1gb of hard drive space for virtual memory. I have been looking at taking this computer apart and using a xbox 360 case to make the first xbox 360 looking computer that runs games the same way using the sub-OS i have built.