I have this P3, 256 mb RAM, NVIDIA TNT2 with Windows 98 SE. I have installed Unofficial Service Pack 3 and it runs really well. However, after some reboots, it says, Windows Registry Error, it reboots and the computer gets crazy, some programs stop working etc.

I have reinstalled windows 6 times and at the last one, i went to msconfig and diabled scanregw.

However, i rebooted it and it boot to an MSDOS window and restored a backup of the registry. it is now crazy again!

Help me! I'm losing my temper!

If your HDD has a large on-board cache, or it is older and slower, then when you shutdown Windows the system may be powering down before the registry is fully flushed (written) from the HDD cache back to the platters.

You can try using Regedit to set

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\CacheWriteDelay

to 2000 (decimal) or 4000 if already present. Delay is in milliseconds.

If your HDD has a large on-board cache, or it is older and slower, then when you shutdown Windows the system may be powering down before the registry is fully flushed (written) from the HDD cache back to the platters.

You can try using Regedit to set

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\CacheWriteDelay

to 2000 (decimal) or 4000 if already present. Delay is in milliseconds.

Yes! It's an old Seagate Barracuda, 6GB noisy as hell!

Should i put the delay bigger than that or that is ok?

EDIT: I can't find that folder in the registry

Edited December 9, 201213 yr by huguia

You can try using Regedit to set

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\CacheWriteDelay

to 2000 (decimal) or 4000 if already present. Delay is in milliseconds.

I can't find that folder in the registry

Really? Not there??? REALLY?

Read this and go from there.

Yes! It's an old Seagate Barracuda, 6GB noisy as hell!

Yeah, older drives are noisier than modern drives but "noisy as hell!" ?

Sounds to me as though your hard drive is failing. At least you ought to check it for bad sectors.

Do you have another hard drive you can try?

Then again is the overall age of your hardware. Old motherboards may work OK from a cold start but can become unstable after they have been powered up for a while and get warm.