15 Problems That Your Plague Your PC
And How to Solve Them


--by Karen Kenworthy, Contributing Editor, Fred Langa, Senior 
Consulting Editor, John Woram, Consulting Editor, Serdar 
Yegulalp, Technology Editor


** Problem No 8: My system hangs at random intervals. **

Solution:
Many things can contribute to intermittent problems, including 
defective RAM and unstable power supplies. But often flaky 
drivers are to blame. In their haste to bring the latest and 
greatest hardware to market, many vendors take shortcuts in the 
device driver development and testing phase. The result is 
often a bug-ridden first-generation driver. Some vendors 
release hardware without drivers, forcing you to make do with 
older, often 16-bit DOS-based drivers.

To solve these problems, first back up your hard disk, then 
create an emergency boot diskette. If you're running Win95, be 
sure to place your CD-ROM driver and MSCDEX.EXE file on your 
diskette (Win98's Emergency Boot Diskette Wizard adds these 
automatically). Next, check the Web site of your computer 
vendor, the device vendor or Microsoft for new drivers. The 
drivers that ship with hardware are seldom up to date. In 
almost all cases, you can find newer, less buggy versions.

Next, search your CONFIG.SYS file for DEVICE= lines that load 
16-bit device drivers. These driver files usually have SYS 
extensions, but DRV or other extensions are also possible. If 
you find such a line, comment it out by inserting REM at the 
beginning of the line. Save the new CONFIG.SYS file and 
reboot. If all goes well, your computer may inform you it's 
found a new device, and ask you to insert your original Windows 
or hardware CD to obtain newer, 32-bit drivers. If your 
computer fails to boot, or a device no longer works correctly, 
you'll have to restore the DEVICE= lines and reboot. It's then 
time to complain in earnest about the lack of proper drivers or 
purchase newer hardware with better driver support.


 1998 Windows Magazine, April 1999, Page 112.