>> I've not seen this mentioned elsewhere. How about some details on your
>> system: RAM, Processor Speed, VGA & Driver version, SP2 or SP3?
>>
>> - Thee Chicago Wolf
>
>System is an HP 8510W Laptop, 4GB of ram(I know, XP/32bit
>will only see/use 3GB, I did not order the system), Windows XP-SP2,
>Nvidia Graphics with the latest drivers installed from the HP site, could
>not find the appropriate driver at Nvidia.com. The system is only
>a few weeks old and this behavior appeared to start when drivers
>were installed for a USB to Serial adapter. Did a system restore
>back to before the drivers were installed(after removing the driver),
>and that did not fix it. It is not my system, so I am going on someone
>elses word for most of the details on recent changes to the system.
>As a side note, I did a test of another Control Panel applet as
>such : "rundll32.exe shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL access.cpl,,3"
>and it came up instantly, but when I run the desktop applet
>as such : "rundll32.exe shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL desk.cpl,,3",
>it takes 3+ minutes for the applet to appear.
>
>One other odd thing, when booting, the user has a wallpaper
>image that shows up early in the boot, then disappears a short
>time later to just a blank blue background. It is like the Nvidia
>drivers/managment has taken over somehow. I could try
>un-installing the Nvidia drivers, but the user was not too
>happy about doing that.
>
>Thanks for the post.
>
>TDM
>
Well, if the user doesn't object, SP3 might remedy this issue. If it's
a driver issue, updating to the current NVidia set from NVidia.com
might remedy it. Of course, these HP laptops sometimes need "HP"
specific drivers to the laptop and many times the manufacturers don't
like to update their drivers ever.
1) Try the updated NVidia driver first for sure.
2) If there's still an issue, you might try updating the DirectX to
the June Redistributable here:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en
Knocking out the video and image related issues first will help narrow
down the issue.
3) If those two things fail, download and install the FULL SP3 update.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en
You *CAN* squeeze more than 3GB RAM out of a 4GB machine but sometimes
it might only be a little bit more than 3GB (3.25GB). Try this:
Start > Settings > Control Panel > System > Advanced tab > Startup &
Recovery settings button > Edit button, add the following switch
option to whatever's there: /3GB. It should then something look like:
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP
Professional" /3GB /noexecute=optin /fastdetect
Check the memory before and after.
4) If this is an HP computer with and AMD processor, go grab the AMD
pre-SP3 update:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/953356, install,
reboot, and try the full SP3 update.
Let me know how it goes.
- Thee Chicago Wolf