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Memory leakage appears to be a problem, too.
About five or six times a day to re-boot is normal and I've come to accept it as a fact of computer life.
Am I getting off lightly, or do you have the same problem?
On the Mac OS X 10.2 I have only had to reboot after updating software.
I run lots of professional software (often at the same time): Photoshop, DW, Corel Draw, Flash, Word, IE, Outlook... Lots of RAM, lots of hard disk space. There are some combinations that always crash (usually involving one of the MS packages).
From what everyone is saying it sounds like 2k and XP are much more stable. Sounds like I should upgrade.
Crashed three times to date, been using for 4 months.
Sometimes has to close aplications but very rarely does any error bring the entire system to a lock point.
I think the blue screen has been phased out in favour of an automated restart. Not great because you have no chance to recover data or save your work.
[dave@tc4 ~]$ uptime
19:48:26 up 4 days, 7:54, 0 users, load average: 0.65, 0.54, 0.37
In a surprise announcement today, Microsoft President Steve Ballmer
revealed that the Redmond-based company will allow computer resellers and
end-users to customize the appearance of the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD),
the screen that displays when the Windows operating system crashes.
The move comes as the result of numerous focus groups and customer surveys
done by Microsoft. Thousands of Microsoft customers were asked, "What do
you spend the most time doing on your computer?"
A surprising number of respondents said, "Staring at a Blue Screen of
Death." At 54 percent, it was the top answer, beating the second place
answer "Downloading XXXScans" by an easy 12 points.
"We immediately recognized this as a great opportunity for ourselves, our
channel partners, and especially our customers," explained the excited
Ballmer to a room full of reporters.
Immense video displays were used to show images of the new customizable
BSOD screen side-by-side with the older static version. Users can select
from a collection of "BSOD Themes," allowing them to instead have a Mauve
Screen of Death or even a Paisley Screen of Death. Graphics and multimedia
content can now be incorporated into the screen, making the BSOD the
perfect conduit for delivering product information and entertainment to
Windows users.
The BSOD is by far the most recognized feature of the Windows operating
system, and as a result, Microsoft has historically insisted on total
control over its look and feel. This recent departure from that policy
reflects Microsoft's recognition of the Windows desktop itself as the
"ultimate information portal." By default, the new BSOD will be configured
to show a random selection of Microsoft product information whenever the
system crashes. Microsoft channel partners can negotiate with Microsoft for
the right to customize the BSOD on systems they ship. Major computer
resellers such as Compaq, Gateway, and Dell are already lining up for
premier placement on the new and improved BSOD.
Ballmer concluded by getting a dig in against the Open Source community.
"This just goes to show that Microsoft continues to innovate at a much
faster pace than open source. I have yet to see any evidence that Linux
even has a BSOD, let alone a customizable one."
From what everyone is saying it sounds like 2k and XP are much more stable. Sounds like I should upgrade.
Yes, but it's best to buy a new computer instead of installing Win2000 or XP on an older system, since not all legacy hardware has Win2000 or XP drivers. And new PCs are so cheap these days that it's probably smarter to buy a new computer than to pay for a Win2000/XP OS upgrade
Also be sure that Windows 2000 or XP is compatible with plug-in cards and external peripherals that you may be using. Some scanners, for example, may not have Win 2000/XP drivers. And a few "Windows modems" or "Windows printers" may require Win 95/98 for operation.
Now comparing recent platforms, All Mac OS, Windows XP and *NIX flavors seem a lot more stable than before.
So whathever platform you are used to, upgrade and (almost) forget about the daily crashes.
Even with DW MX running with 30 pages open, 6 browser windows, two email apps open and three chat progams, my CPU usage never gets above 50%.
I'm running 2 gigs of DDR SDRAM with an Athlon XP processor. System is stable as a rock. I just added a water cooled CPU cooling system. That rocks. :) No more lag on hot days and no danger of CPU heat damage and the constant cool temperature seems to really affect how stable the system is.
I just added a water cooled CPU cooling system.
SWEET!
Running an Athlon 1.3GHz with 512MB. The only time I consume more than half my RAM is when I have some RAM-Hog apps running (like Fireworks, Opera, MS Word).
Have to be more careful what I read in future.
CPU fan and System fan is the best money can buy for a PC.
Na, if your rebooting, start getting all the valuables, and get ready to move and clean it up.
Agreed. Buy the best cooling system you can afford. I go a little fan crazy, my current system has two 80mm fans in the back, a 120mm fan in the front, 3 80mm fans on top and a RAM fan coupled with the water cooled CPU and RAM system. My next addition will be two air cooled hard drive bays complete with temp indicators. The Asus MOBO came with something called C.O.P. CPU Overheating Protection. It monitors all the temps and shuts the system down before any damage can be done to the CPU. The bios also allows me to monitor all system temps, and increase or decrease the system fan RPMs. Once a month I open up the case, (buy steel cases if possible too, they hold less heat) and blow out all the dust.
I haven't had a system crash since removing the Nvidia card. (serious driver conflict with XP Pro)
Also be sure that Windows 2000 or XP is compatible with plug-in cards and external peripherals that you may be using. Some scanners, for example, may not have Win 2000/XP drivers.
The Win2k setup assistant displaying a long list of supposedly incompatible hardware was what prevented me from upgrading from 98 for a few months. XP didn't give me any such list, so I didn't even have the chance to hesitate :)
Results: The HP scanner that doesn't have XP drivers works amazingly well with Windows' built in default drivers. The digital camera needed a little trick (disabling a Windows 'service') that took me a few hours to find out, but other than that there were no problems at all.
The push pull configuration of air in this particular system is very good, no problems whatsoever with ventilation or overheating problems. Its an overclocking spec setup, but i don't bother, i just read all the hardware tips, and know that i can put what ever CPU and ram in it and know that i ain't frying any chips.
I tried XP, but far too slow compared to 98 (But, I've only got half a gig on the main box, so thats not near enough ;-) to run well. Also, I have several mission critical dos apps that won't run in it. So I stick with 98.
Win 95 Please, way to many to count!
Moms Win 98 pc used for surfing and email: 1 - 3 times a month.
Win 2000 2 maybe 3 times in over a year and a half of use.
RedHat 8 zero in a little over two months of use.
Windows XP is once a week, and that's usually because I reboot just for good measure.
Oh, and I just checked and saw that I have abut 20 browsers running, plus a few excell spread sheets, plus MS Front Page. That's typical.
Running a 1.8G P4 with 540M memory ... takes all the abuse I can dish out.
strangelly since i have ADSL i reboot only 1 time in a day...around 15+ hours after i start PC with win98 the computer starts to behave strange- lots of errors, memory problmes etc..whcih i think is normal after 15+ hours with win98:)
You can have my machine for a snip. ;)
12:28pm up 14 days, 18:24, (I added a hard drive two weeks ago...)
I find that on this machine I have to logout every week or so, and then log back in. So far no crashes, apart from the time I put a sym-link in a silly place. Forgot about it and rebooted when I put some ram in. Kernal Panic! I rebooted using a Debian CD, and put the real files back...
Primary test box...(Debian)
12:17:03 up 72 days, 50 min
But thats Linux, thats cheating.
NO CRASHES at all since I got the comp (pre-installed) about 3 months ago.
At home Windows ME maybe once a week usually due to some 3rd party software or in a game :(
