XP annoyances....

[poltr1]

It's been a year since I upgraded orac to XP Home (with Service Pack 2). It's definitely an improvement over Win 98. However, it's far from perfect. Here are the problems I've been having.

1) Even though I have "show volume icon in the taskbar" checked, it doesn't show up there.
2) Windows Media Player 9 craps out on me after about 90 seconds if I'm playing an audio CD.
3) Sometimes my browser (and other processes) hangs for a couple of minutes while it's allegedly doing something that I can't find in Task Manager.
4) The real grr argh: I still get the occasional BSOD with critical stop and core memory dumps, and I can't pick up where I left off; I have to reboot and restart from scratch.

Any help or suggestions would be appreciated. That it, other than "switch to Linux" or "buy a Mac". If you want me to start using a Mac, then buy me one. :-|

Comments

[fuzzyvanman.livejournal.com]

Re: Task manager
Try Process Explorer A very good task manager replacement.

Make sure all your drivers are up to date. Flaky drivers can cause crashes. Also try a memory test. I used this one lately. It seems to work well.

How much memory do you have in this box?

Hey, Mr. Grumpy Gills...

[athenawindsong.livejournal.com]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adqLaecr9WY

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

#2, #3, and #4 can all be caused by bad RAM. I'd grab a copy of memtest86 from somewhere, burn it to a CD, boot from it, and then leave it running overnight.

[poltr1]

If I remember correctly, I have 384 Mb of memory in the desktop.

Re: Hey, Mr. Grumpy Gills...

[poltr1]

You keep forgetting that I still have dialup at home and the firewall at my workplace blocks straming video (including YouTube). So I can't watch it.

Re: Hey, Mr. Grumpy Gills...

[poltr1]

BTW, what's on this video?

Re: Hey, Mr. Grumpy Gills...

[athenawindsong.livejournal.com]

It's Dory singing "Just keep swimming..." to Nemo's dad.

I won't post any more video links.