Monday, April 15, 2002		Dr Tribune

Q. I am a rather ignorant 50-year-old new user of computers and the Internet, so please do not laugh at the elementary nature of my question. In reply to many questions, you have stressed the need to clear the junk in order to get a good performance of Internet Explorer. People like me do not understand many terms. I specifically want to know what is "cache memory" and, more importantly, how do we clean it. Is it different from Temporary Internet Files that I have learnt to clean regularly. How do we find and delete .tmp files? Should I also remove all cookies? What are the implications of this?

—Swarn Singh

A. Your question is very good and many computer users actually do not understand it thoroughly. As you would be aware that unlike storage capacity, which is very large in capacity, the temporary memory or the random access memory is very less. The Random Access Memory or RAM is normally not very high. Still in majority of the computers it is 64 MB and in some others it is 128 MB. This memory is being used for storing temporary data, which the processor needs very often. Since these days with the use of Internet, the temporary information becomes too large so, many times the RAM gets exhausted and then the processor seeks the information from the swap files, which is slower in access as compared to the RAM. It is primarily for this reason that I suggest the computer users to keep the computer free of clutter as this way they can keep their RAM unoccupied resulting into better performance. In specific terms cache memory is random access memory (RAM) that a computer microprocessor can access more quickly than it can access regular RAM. As the microprocessor processes data, it looks first in the cache memory and if it finds the data there (from a previous reading of data), it does not have to do the more time-consuming reading of data from larger memory. Now if you keep it occupied then you obviously miss the best performance of your system. I use this term normally in relation to the browser, since the browser keeps a lot of information in store in memory cache, therefore the system runs short of resources, if more and more resources are being used by the browser. Thus it is important to keep the memory cache free of all junk as the simple logic is more free resources means better system performance. Regarding cleaning it, the procedure is different in Netscape and Internet Explorer. In Netscape, you can open Edit>Preference>Advanced>Cache. And in the corresponding window clear memory cache, clear disk cache. Regarding the .tmp files, you can find them in C:\ >Windows\ Temp. You can also clean these files using the disk clean up utility. As far as the cookies are concerned, it is better to remove them for two important reasons. First, it reduces the vulnerability to the security and second it frees up valuable system resources. There are no implications of it.

Q.The configuration of my computer is P-III 800 MHz, 128 MB RAM, 20 GB HDD, with dual boot Windows '98 on drive C: and Windows XP professional on drive F. Since last few days when I open My Computer or Internet Explorer in Windows XP, I get the following error

"Windows Explorer has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for your inconvenience. If you were in the middle of something the information you were working in might be lost. Click here to see the details."

On Clicking on "click here" I get the message:

"App name - Explorer.exe

App ver - 6.0.2600.0

Mode name - unknown

Mod Ver - 0.0.0.0 offset 00d0139e"

Sir I would be obliged to you if you provide me the solution.

Arvind Singh, Patiala

A. From the description of your problem it appears that a part of Windows has become corrupt. Now to solve this problem, you should first run scandisk in thorough mode followed by defrag. Now ideally, this should solve your problem. However, if it does not solve your problem, then you may need to load the Windows again.

Q. I have installed Norton 2002 anti virus installed on my system running on Windows-Me platform.

Sir, I updated anti virus software. It was a huge file that took several hours to download. But after some days I had to format Windows due to some reason and I again installed Windows Me. Then I again had to update my anti virus software. I want to know: Is it possible to save the update files that are downloaded by anti virus so that the files can be installed later and need not be downloaded again and again.Please do explain where are these files saved.

Nitin Loomba, Karnal

A. One possible solution to your problem could be taking the necessary back up of the whole program and then restoring the same whenever it required. However, simply copying the files would not solve your problem.

Q. I have P III 500 MHz, 64 MB RAM, 20 GB Samsung HDD, Win '98 OS, American mega trends BIOS. I have T810B-SE ver 1.07 motherboard. The first problem is that whenever I boot my computer, it displays the

following messages: CMOS setting wrong. Press F1 to run SETUP. Press F2 to load default values and continue. I press F2 and Win '98 is loaded but it doesn't detect my sound driver. To detect sound driver I have to restart my PC.After restarting PC it displays the following message:Please reselect the CPU speed. My CPU speed is 500 MHz.I first change it (in BIOS) to some other figure and then make it 500 MHz. After saving and quitting the BIOS my PC boots up normally. Another point I have noticed is that any changes made to BIOS do not get stored.

Amit Goel, Dhand, Kaithal

A. The solution to your problem is quite simple as from the description of your problem it is clear that the CMOS battery on your motherboard is weak. You need to replace this battery with a new one to solve all your problems. After replacing the battery please load the default settings in the BIOS feature setup and then reboot your system. On restarting your problems would be solved.

Q. I have P4, 1.5 GHz speed, 128 MB RAM, 32 MB TNT2 graphic accelerator, 40 GB hard disk, 845 chipset motherboard. The problem is that when I open any program the message comes, "explorer has caused an illegal operation and will close." When I click on close the system hangs and message comes "a fatal exception OE has occurred at 0028:c0005257in v*d(oc)+00004257. The current application will be terminated.

*Press any key to terminate the application *Press Ctrl+ Alt+ Del keys to restart the computer. You will lose data inapplication"When I open any game then game stops and message comes "a fatal exception OE has occurred at 0028:c004e759 in v*d vcache(01)+0000075.the current application will be terminated."

The problem is so severe that I can't operate on any other software also. After 1 minute or so the message appears. Sometimes I have to shut down the computer improperly. Because of this problem, I had formatted the disk and loaded Win '98

after Win me. Now I have Win 98 running. The Internet explorer also stops in between. Please solve my problem.

Harkirat Ricky, Ajnoha, Hoshiarpur

A. The reason for this problem is possibly related to RAM. You can interchange the slots of RAM, if you are using more than one pieces of RAM and if you are using single piece of RAM, then you can put it in a different slot. I hope this will solve your problem. However, if it does not solve your problem, then you may need to change your RAM. Even the other problems mentioned by you appears to be related to the first problem and therefore requires the issue related to the RAM sorted out first. I am sure that once this issue is addressed, it will solve your others problems also.