RE-CYCLED TEENAGER said:
I had the same problem with my Dell. after spending hours on the phone, to
India of course,(though I did get them to phone me on my mobile
eventually),
after having the tower returned to Dell for a new Hard Drive and no
improvement I decided to do some more investigation myself and realised
that
it was my Lexmark x3470 printer which was causing the problem. If I don't
connect it to the computer at the Start there are no problems and when I
then
later need to print I then connect it with no problems. Just remember to
unplug it before Shut Down or it will delay that too.I passed this message
to
the Dell technician who I had got quite friendly with and he told his
supervisor who then e-mailed the solution to all Dell techbicians. Not bad
for a 60 year old grandma!
If it's still happening to you and you have not got this printer check any
other equipment you have got attached to your computer.
I've seen this a few times with XP, mostly with Dell PCs, where attached USB
drives cause this behaviour.
As you say, detaching the external device instantly ends the problem, so you
might consider trying to add another USB2 card - these can be quite
inexpensive and trivial to install. I see these cards for around $20.
And yes, it's a good idea to see if the PC maker has a solution. Often,
their support will say it's a problem with the external device, so try
attaching it to another system from another maker and see if it behaves the
same.
HTH
-pk
