Flash problems with Gateway E-3400s

[Robert Sullivan]

We've been having recurring problems among our public Internet PCs with Yahoo
Mail and Hotmail (and occasionally other sites).  I couldn't tell if this was
general squirreliness caused by being subjected to patron abuse for a year, or
out-of-date software.  These PCs are Gateway E-3400s (NT4/SP6, 256MB RAM, IE
5.5, P700 or so).

I yanked two of the most antisocial and wiped them; they now have IE 6 and the
latest versions of Flash, Shockwave etc.  In the course of testing, I
discovered that although they handled Shockwave fine, the Flash page at
<http://www.worldlinq.org> would cause them to spontaneously reboot.

I have tested this on a total of 7 E-3400s out of a batch of 10 we purchased
about a year and a half ago, and they all do it.  In contrast, one of our first
NT PCs (local clone with P166, 32MB RAM and old Flash) handles the page
perfectly, if slowly.

I did some hunting at alltheweb.com and found an archived message at

<http://www.incolsa.net/archives/techies/msg00048.html>

which suggests the E-3400s had bad motherboards with leaky capacitors.

Has anyone else had similar problems?  My experience with Gateway support is
highly variable, and I'd like to have some reinforcement when I call them.

Bob Sullivan                               scp_sulli at sals.edu
Schenectady County Public Library (NY)     http://www.scpl.org