Random Windows ME issue.

these 5 new/old PC's i got from the bank, they all seem to have the same issue, one i have never seen before and i am assuming its because of WinME.

while i look around online, you can hear the hard drive accessing, but what its really doing is filling the hard drive with gobbledygook. if i look around long enough i will actually get a low space warning :sad:

then i reboot, and the hard drive is back to normal till it fills up again.

in other words, its falsely reporting the hard drive is full.

i am assuming its a bug with ME, but i can find no documentation on it.

lastly, please note i hate WinME, but because of the smallish size and my shortage of ram i cannot go up to Win2000 but on one or two comps, which i have and the issue goes away.

but the others only have 64 megs of ram and ME runs better on 64 than 2000 ever will.

has anyone read anything on this nasty bug? and how can i patch it or whatever it takes to remedy the situation.

thanx in advance.. and i am grateful you didn't remind me how evil WinME truly is :biggrin:

Dont know about this problem, but personally I'd use 98 over ME...

ME makes me like $loths avatar :biggrin:

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting wil5on</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>Dont know about this problem, but personally I'd use 98 over ME...

ME makes me like $loths avatar :biggrin:

</DIV></DIV>

tried it, but heres the catch, winME has all the drivers necessary to make it function without the need of looking online.

windows98 only has about 1/2 and i would have to search for drivers circa 400MHz, if you get my drift.

surely this cannot be an isolated incident, as it has occurred on all 3 of the 5 i have done so far.. thats not coincidence.

heres another kick in the ass, its not full time, it usually takes about 10 minutes then begins its clickity-click noise as the hard drive fulls up.
i wish i knew but so far i am stumped cause,in the search window what question would one ask???

You don't have to move to windows 2000 to improve on winME, windows 98 is better as well.

As for a solution, try going to system properties, and under performance, change the swap file size from 'let windows manage my swap file', to maximum and minimum values that are the same. Depending on hard disk space of course. If there is easily room for it, set it to a maximum and minimum size 512 megs. Otherwise, set it to a permenant value that you have got room for, but I wouldn't recomend setting it below 256.

Since it's only internet browsing that does it, have you tried updating the internet explorer version, or browsing the internet with a different browser? I'm not trying to get you to stop using IE, I just think trying a different browser would be a good way to isolate the cause of the problem, so that it can then be fixed :smile:

Use Windows 98. I know you said don't gripe about ME, but I swear
you're the only person left on earth who persists in using it :razz:

People slate and gripe about it with good reason, it was little more
than a Microsoft money spinner - 98 with more bugs, bells and whistles
released in the milennium fever to make maximum capital success.

98 or 98SE will run fine on machines of 3/4/5/6/700 mhz and low amounts of RAM.

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting scary_jeff</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>You don't have to move to windows 2000 to improve on winME, windows 98 is better as well.

As for a solution, try going to system properties, and under performance, change the swap file size from 'let windows manage my swap file', to maximum and minimum values that are the same. Depending on hard disk space of course. If there is easily room for it, set it to a maximum and minimum size 512 megs. Otherwise, set it to a permenant value that you have got room for, but I wouldn't recomend setting it below 256.

Since it's only internet browsing that does it, have you tried updating the internet explorer version, or browsing the internet with a different browser? I'm not trying to get you to stop using IE, I just think trying a different browser would be a good way to isolate the cause of the problem, so that it can then be fixed :smile: </DIV></DIV>

we musta posted at the same time cause i already covered win98, and yes i agree its superior to winME

secondly, of the three pc's all have done it, i also updated the first one fully at microsoft, to all known critical updates, it continued to do it just like this one .. which hasn't been to microsoft yet at all.

i will try the swapfile thing, but am ignorant as to how it will help, BUT any help is help so i will do it.

the ONLY THING all three comps have in common, i updated the video drivers (810 chipset) and the sound cards are all on (i added them,office comps do not come with sound.. all are soundblaster PCI128)
could it be the 810 drivers?? surely not??

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Gwil</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>Use Windows 98. I know you said don't gripe about ME, but I swear you're the only person left on earth who persists in using it :razz:

People slate and gripe about it with good reason, it was little more than a Microsoft money spinner - 98 with more bugs, bells and whistles released in the milennium fever to make maximum capital success.

98 or 98SE will run fine on machines of 3/4/5/6/700 mhz and low amounts of RAM.

</DIV></DIV>

dammit people, slow down and read.

i hate winME, i don't use it for s**t, but these old office comps are stripped versions and have obscure driver sets.. windows 98 will load, but half the system is off due to driver insufficiencies.. windowsME has them.
if worse comes to worse i will just look them all up and burn them to disk i suppose, but dangit please stop misreading my posts :razz:

Have you fully updated your version of WinME on Windows Update? There are a lot of security and bug fixes on there, you should probably get that stuff anyway. And Explorer should get updated via that as well.

Switching to a different browser like Mozilla Firefox might help. I've heard it's a lot better (and safer) than IE anyway.

Another possible issue: viruses and spyware. I'd scan the s**t out of it with all the free online scans and program demos.

You might also try running Norton Utilities or System Mechanic, maybe they'll catch and fix the bugs or corrupt files that are causing this.

If those things don't work, I would look into it being either:

a) Corrupt installation of Me

or

b) Bad hard drive

edit: Could be some bug in the formatting of the hard drive, too, though I've never heard of such a thing before...? Erm how big is the hard drive? some old OS's can't properly 'see' some of the bigger hard drives without a separate ATA controller card.

1) i receive PC's minus a hard drive. they were bank computers and they trust no one, and no format will remove all data so, hard drives are gone.

2) i install hard drives of my own.. 3-computers so far 1 has a 2.1 gig and 2 have 4.3 gigs now.

3) the first one i did was updated with ALL CRITICAL UPDATES at microsoft, problem persisted. second and third have no updates save the 810 drivers and the soundblaster activation drivers for PCI 128 sound cards.

4) i am on #3 currently.. it has been changed to 512 swapfile as jeff suggested, i am awaiting to see if the problem reoccurs or if his suggestion solved the issue.

5) did i mention just how much i hate windows ME?? :biggrin:

thanx guys, i do appreciate it, but sometimes i truly wonder if my typing skills are at fault when information FROM me to YOU is misunderstood, everything each of you said (except the swapfile) was covered before each of you posted

It's not so much that we can't read as that we are too lazy to :wink:

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Jinx</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>It's not so much that we can't read as that we are too lazy to :wink: </DIV></DIV>

yeah, well.. tis why i do say thanx.. you could ignore me totally.

i am guilty as well i suppose.. but i usually post something along the lines "to much to read, sorry if this was covered already" :biggrin:

looks at watch
been about 10 minutes.. no clickity-click noises yet.. maybe jeff's idea worked?????

if it dindt i suppose the computer blew up by now

update: been hours now, no hard drive issues.. i am going to assume that setting the swap file to 512 did the trick.

thanx a bunch Jeff :smile:

Well thanks for the warning ahead of time i was going to get ME becuase my stupid Xp keeps wanting a activation key that is valid. Yet when i enter the one given to me on the software it says its been used to many times. Microsoft is bad, Should i switch to linux??

Not really, no. If your software was legally purchased you'll be able to phone Microsoft and address that issue with XP.

Dont switch to Linux over an issue as trivial as that - Windows XP
Professional is actually a fairly decent operating system, and good and
secure as long as you exercise common sense.

Phone up the support department and ask for their help. If however,
this is a 2nd installation of Windows XP (ie 2nd machine) and
theyre both on net, that could be the source of the problem. But I
dunno.

If you think a Microsoft activation key is hassle, I strongly advise against undertaking Linux until you've "mastered" Windows.