OT-Computer & live streaming help please

My work computer is not an Intel machine. It is the AMD equivalent of the pentium three I believe. It is running windows 98. When using it to listen to streaming music over the DSL connection it will stop working well after about 4 hours. If the computer is not re-booted every twenty hours or so it gets real slow. Where should I look to solve these problems? The place where I bought it is less than helpful. So much for supporting THAT local business. Thank You, Eric R Snow, who is better at machining than computers

As you use your computer, RAM gets used up in the different applications that you work with. You need to reboot to free up this RAM in windows 98. I have Norton Systems works in my pc, and I can watch as the ram gets used up. I would say that shutting down at night would be the best thing anyway. It doesn't have anything to do with AMD or Intel processor.
Jim
Eric R Snow wrote:
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That is a very ratrional explanation. I noticed a similar occurrence on my old 98 machine with 256K of RAM. As I understand it Win 98 could not function well with more than 256K of RAM.
Bob Swinney
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Does the machine still slow or stop working after extended periods without the music player running or loaded? What you're describing isn't normal even for windows 98. It's often difficult to see whats causeing a slow down because the tools you need to run often can't, but basically as suggested you've got a memory issue, a cpu utilisation issue or a slim possibility of something overheating(?) and so locking up.
IS your PC behind a firewall or do you have any firewall between the PC and the DSL modem? Do you have the latest fixes from MS for win98 and explorer? This could be any number of viruses or Trojans which could slow your system like this, although it would be an extreme case. If you haven't already done so do a virus check and get the free copy of AD- Aware and do a spybot/trojan check too. Do you have means to see how much of your bandwidth is being used?
From a different perspective most OS's including windows 98 try to use all the available RAM by design. RAM is used by the different apps but it is intended that the OS use as much of the available RAM as possible to speed up the machine and waste time doing disk accesses to the paging file. Windows 98 and 98se are not very good or efficient at fully utilising more than 256Mb of RAM but it still runs fine with more.
The problem comes when programs require RAM, or more correctly more pages of data to be sourced preferably from RAM or from the page file or ultimately from system or data files on disk. To make space for program demands pages are swapped out in favor of other data. If you have a program that doesn't allow it's pages to be released then you get slower ad slower RAM access as the space fragments. This especially a problem with long running programs..
First thing I'd suggest is checking for viruses and spybots
Then, if possible I'd test whether the machine locks up without the music program running. IF so then try another version or another vendors program because the version you have probably has a memory leak.
When the machine slows see if you can get in to check the cpu utilisation. If it's pegged at 100% then see whats using it. The same program will allow you to view columns to see the reads and writes from memory and disk too.
If it's not virus related, slows up without the music program running and cpu isn't at 100% then check how hot the thing is, if things get too hot then it's possible that a PC could slow as you describe, but more normally they would just lock up. Make sure the insides are clean, fans are running and the cpu, disk and memory are cool enough to run. AMD's of the P3 equivalent draw a lot of power and produce a lot of heat.
good luck
Jeff
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Hi Jeff, It slows even when not streaming. And with the streaming software closed. I've run adaware and spybot. It occurs when the dsl modem or whatever it's called is off too. I think Jim has the answer. More ram. Thanks, Eric
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Eric R Snow wrote:
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http://www.tucows.com/resource95_default.html
Here are some freeware and shareware managers.

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Greetings Jim, Thanks for the reply. I do shut the machine down every night but streaming radio will cause the slowdown and failure in about 4 hours. Does this mean I just need more ram? It's cheap enough, so if that's what is needed to fix the problem I'll do it. ERS

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Eric, I don't do much with streaming radio, so I can't help much more from experience. As one other poster mentioned, you can install more ram. I have 512 in this system with windows 98. Of course, your motherboard has to support it, etc.
Eric R Snow wrote:
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<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> <html> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=ISO-8859-1"> <title></title> </head> <body text="#000000" bgcolor="#ffffff"> Eric, I don't do much with streaming radio, so I can't help much more from experience.&nbsp; As one other poster mentioned, you can install more ram.&nbsp; I have 512 in this system with windows 98.&nbsp; Of course, your motherboard has to support it, etc.<br> <br> Eric R Snow wrote:<br> <blockquote type="cite" cite=" snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com"> <pre wrap="">On Mon, 04 Oct 2004 14:43:57 GMT, J &amp; J <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto: snipped-for-privacy@frontiernet.net">&lt; snipped-for-privacy@frontiernet.net&gt;</a> wrote:
</pre> <blockquote type="cite"> <pre wrap="">As you use your computer, RAM gets used up in the different applications that you work with. You need to reboot to free up this RAM in windows 98. I have Norton Systems works in my pc, and I can watch as the ram gets used up. I would say that shutting down at night would be the best thing anyway. It doesn't have anything to do with AMD or Intel processor.
Jim
Eric R Snow wrote:
</pre> <blockquote type="cite"> <pre wrap="">My work computer is not an Intel machine. It is the AMD equivalent of the pentium three I believe. It is running windows 98. When using it to listen to streaming music over the DSL connection it will stop working well after about 4 hours. If the computer is not re-booted every twenty hours or so it gets real slow. Where should I look to solve these problems? The place where I bought it is less than helpful. So much for supporting THAT local business. Thank You, Eric R Snow, who is better at machining than computers
</pre> </blockquote> </blockquote> <pre wrap=""><!---->Greetings Jim, Thanks for the reply. I do shut the machine down every night but streaming radio will cause the slowdown and failure in about 4 hours. Does this mean I just need more ram? It's cheap enough, so if that's what is needed to fix the problem I'll do it. ERS </pre> </blockquote> </body> </html>
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You might try a different application for handling the streaming audio feed. You also might upgrade to Windows 2000 Pro. If you want to do that, Eric, contact me off-line -- I *just* went through that exact thing.
Grant Erwin
Eric R Snow wrote:
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Eric R Snow wrote:
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Switch to Linux. I often leave my Linux system running 3 months and more! I run Win 2K in a virtual machine using the vmware program. Windows runs a lot more reliably in a "perfect" virtual environment. Linux is WAY more secure than Windows, although I've been hacked twice in the past 3 years it has been online.
Jon

On Mon, 04 Oct 2004 16:49:59 -0500, Jon Elson
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So if I switch to Linux how hard is it to learn to use? Keep in mind I don't have much spare time right now. ERS

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    And here is my OpenBSD on a Shuttle S51G (with a Celeron CPU, instead of a Pentium):
12:23AM up 58 days, 12:23, 2 users, load averages: 0.14, 0.11, 0.09
    And a unix box on a 2.4 GHz Celeron really *screams*. (It is amazing how much Windows slows down a system. :-)
And here are some other unix boxen:
=====================================================================ceilidh up 267+07:27, 0 users, load 0.04, 0.10, 0.13 izalco up 56+03:59, 1 user, load 0.02, 0.08, 0.11 popocat up 276+09:48, 0 users, load 0.15, 0.02, 0.01 ====================================================================Those uptimes are days+hours:minutes, and the uptime on popocat goes back to the last time I had to replace the batteries in my UPS after too many long power outages and several years of service. Izalco has gotten more recent hardware changes (an added array of disks), hence the shorter uptime on that.
    Running almost full time since I built that machine. The OS is OpenBSD 3.5, one of the more secure OS's around -- though a bit less user-friendly to a Windows user.
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    This, I can't tell you. I've been using various flavors of unix (including at home) before ever having a PC -- back in the MS-DOS days. I will tell you that *I* find any unix flavor easier to use than Windows (current version is Windows 2K.) But then, I *like* command-lines. And I do understand that any unix is a bit of a paradigm shift for a new user after Widows or MS-DOS.
    However -- once you know *one* unix, it becomes very easy to move to another one, as most things work the same -- and most new programs (free on the net in source code form) can be compiled to run on the older machines too.
    I would suggest that you find someone who knows unix/linux to help you get started, if you opt to go this way.
    Good Luck,         DoN.

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While Unix/Linux is pretty stable, the best O/S for stability (in my not-so-humble opinion) is VMS (aka OpenVMS). I have systems at client sites that only go down if a power failure outlasts the UPS batteries, or we *absolutely* need the features of a new O/S version. Uptimes of two years or more are common for single systems. If we cluster them, then it becomes essentially unlimited. For example, the Irish national railway VMS cluster stayed up 17 years. Individual CPUs were upgraded over the years by removing them from the cluster, doing the upgrade, then returning them to the cluster. VMS runs on VAX, Alpha, and now Intel's IA64 (Itanium) CPU. All three can be members of the same cluster.
I'm sorry for polluting r.c.m with non-metalworking stuff, but VMS consulting is what gives me the time and money to do what is even more fun: work with metal in my shop.
Alan

Sounds like the "joy" of using Windows.
Steve
Eric R Snow wrote:
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There are utilities that free up ram. Some of them are freeware. Goggle is your friend.

Sounds normal for 98 Karl
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the windows 9X series have known problems that suggest that a reboot every once in a while is a good idea, but a problem in 4 hours is not a windows problem I've seen (usually it's closer to 24 to 48 hours) - I'd see if there is a different version of the straming audio applicaiton. Also, even on a PIII, you will find windows 2000 is quite a bit more stable and a lot faster (if you have enough RAM)
and, while Unix is wonderful, switching to unix from windows just to listen to audio is probably not good advice - without help, setting up a linux system will take you days (I'm reasonably computer literate, and it took me many tens of hours to bring up red had version 5 and get it to work with my print server and other stuff).
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Dump Win98. Switch to Win2000 Pro or Win XP. Or, if you're really smart, switch to Linux. The problem is memory leaks, ie memory that gets allocated via OS calls but is never freed after the requesting program or shared library exits. Win98 is notorious for this problem. 2000 and XP are better, Linux better yet.
Gary

Gary Coffman wrote:
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Gary has it.
I have XP and XP Pro - for win boxes they are stable. Pro is needed for some advanced CAD I installed. It does have some software that XP doesn't. Both are stable.
In the late 70's I used to Call Bill Gates and report bugs and get patches. This was before Microsoft was a outsource from the company. One of them was called shuffle - the stacks from used calls would be marked but still use memory. From time to time, they would shuffle and change the stacks. Shuffle is like cards and had to be in one straight flow operation less something is lost. I had to know how to turn it off (once it was programmed to work) for machine language programs running with his o.s. and programs. I got the address to poke one way and back - and it was good.
Several years ago, I turned in a major bug on win95 that had a bad stack to death mode. I added a note to pass it on up to Bill and state this is like address shuffle out of control. A patch came out. :-) I think he remembered the issue and knew what was going on...
Martin

Gary Coffman wrote:
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Chances are good that your problem IS due to "resource leaks" cause by some programs not releasing memory they've apportioned to themselves when they are done and/or shut down.
I'm still running Win98 on my home computer because from several past experiences each time I've tried to upgrade to a newer version of Windows than the one which came with the computer when I bought I've bitterly regretted that decision.<G>
There is a "Resource Meter" in Win98 you might want to use. It's accessed from Start>Programs>Accessories>System Tools>Resource Meter.
It puts a little "sight glass" style indicator near the clock at the right end of the task bar so you can see how many "gallons of resource" you have left.
If you find that gauge is real low when things slow down you've located the source of your problems, but I'm far too ignorant about such things tell you how to fix it other than rebooting and trying a different application program to accomplish what you need to do.
HTH,
Jeff