Comments

NateC wrote on 5/1/2003, 9:50 PM
Most likely problem would be a corrupt video card driver. Try downloading the latest drivers from your manufacturer. You can also listen to what these guys have to say. Good luck!
bjtap wrote on 5/2/2003, 6:26 AM
NateC,
Thanks for the feedback. I did have windows reinstall the video driver, which it successfully did. (Time will tell if that was the problem.) Also went to the site you left in your message. What a hodge-podge on this problem!
Again, Thanks
Barry
mikkie wrote on 5/2/2003, 7:11 AM
FWIW, when windows is firing up there's an awful lot going on behind the scenes, no matter which version of windows you have. When windows doesn't start, as often as not 2 or more things are trying to happen at once and not getting along with each other very well.

It can be hardware drivers, as these have to be initialized, it can be windows stuff, &/or it can be any software that you've got installed that's setup to start with windows. The last is perhaps the best place to start, if for no other reason that all these programs running drain resources from your PC, and most are IMO useless anyway - in other words, whether it cures a start problem or not, still helps to get rid of many (most?) of these. Creative, Real, Quicktime, are all examples that have useless stuff running in/on the taskbar. One big prob for a lot of folks is Zonealarm.

If disabling autostart on these programs doesn't help, might want to get familiar with the logs that windows keeps on startup, so after a problem occurs you can see what the last thing happening was -> chances are that's your problem one way or another.

Windows also offers a feature to selectively turn stuff off on startup that you can try. RE: video drivers, windows most often does not have the latest stuff built in by any means, nor do they have it available on update - the folks who make the graphics chips don't share everything they have with MS. Hunt up the web site for the manufacturer of your graphics card &/or graphics chip and check out the latest drivers there, following the directions to get them installed.

luck
mike
BillyBoy wrote on 5/2/2003, 11:57 AM
Like Mike said, ZoneAlarm, can be a pain. I don't know if they fixed the bug that was driving a lot of people nuts or not in one of their recent updates. If you have it, you may want to try to disable it and see if the problem goes away. A just as good, maybe better and also free firewall is one called Outpost. I've been using it for months without problem.

Windows has improved on error reporting. Much of what it tells you is still cryptic, but sometimes you get just enough information to at least get a clue what is causing problems.

If you have Windows XP (does Windows 2000 do this too?) it creates event logs when something happens.

For XP: Start/Control Panel/Administrative Tools/Event Viewer

There are three logs kept. One each for Applications,Security and System. Double click to open and you'll see a list of events including the date and time of the event. The ones with a white X through a Red circle are usually the result of some system or application crash. Double click and read what Windows says about it. Yellow warning are just that, generally don't hurt anything, but Windows doesn't like something. All the other events are just information and really don't mean anything, at least nothing that needs fixing.