My computer frequently completely freezes up. It has been doing this for some time and I cannot detect any pattern in the circumstances of the freezing. Last night it froze whilst downloading a file from a website. In an attempt to cure that problem I installed a new hard disk and reloaded essentially the same programs. The problem remained so I assume that it arises from the software or the BIOS. I have Celeron 266, 64mb RAM. I have modem, a video capture card and a sound card. IRQ conflicts are:
IRQ 11 Buster II (A video capture program)
IRQ II Intel82371AB/EB PCI to USB Universal Host Controller
IRQ II IRQ Holder for PCI Steering
IRQ 12 Trident 9440 PCI
IRQ 12 IRQ Holder for PCI Steering
IRQ 14 Primary IDE controller (dual fifo)
IRQ 14 Intel 82371AB/EB PCI Bus Master IDE Controller
IRQ 15 Secondary IDE controller (dual fifo)
IRQ 15 Intel 82371AB/EB PCI Bus Master IDE Controller
I hope that is enough information to give you a clue as to the source of the problem. Thank you for any assistance that you may be able to give to me. I assure you that I will be most grateful.

You seem to have a major problem with your IRQ’s which may or may not be related to your computer freezing. IRQ stands for interrupt request and you can find more information on the definition of this at: www.whatis.com/irq.htm. There are a number of possible solutions to resolve your IRQ conflicts . Firstly, go to the ‘Control Panel’ and open the ‘System’ control panel. Click the ‘Device Manager’ tab, and double click on the conflicting device. In the properties dialog box that appears, click the ‘Resources’ tab and under the ‘Conflicting device list’ you can see what conflicts it is experiencing. From here, Windows may be able to do an automated fix, but if it can’t, your next step is to backup your computer; format your hard drive and reinstall Windows and everything you want on your computer. By reinstalling Windows, the devices which are in conflict should find a free IRQ automatically. If these conflicts persist, you may need to manually change the IRQ of some devices over to a free IRQ. You can do this by going back into the ‘Device Manager’ and into the properties of the conflicting device. Click on the ‘Resource’ tab and un-tick the box labeled ‘Use automatic settings’. By doing this, you can change the IRQ of that specific device so it does not conflict with any others. NB: You must note down the old value of the IRQ before you change it so you can revert to it if necessary. Again, unless you really know your way around your computer’s hardware settings I would have a computer technician do the job. When manually changing your IRQ settings for devices, it is very easy to make what seem to be insignificant changes that in fact will get you into deeper trouble with the IRQ’s. Please contact me again if your system continues to lock up after you have resolved your IRQ conflicts.