L
Lumpy
This is my problem: when cold booting, usually after the PC has been
switched off for a while (hours, not days), everything appears to be
fine during the boot sequence. However, when the welcome screen appears,
the word 'Welcome' cannot be seen. Instead, there is a series of black
squares (like when a font doesn't contain the characters you've typed).
When this welcome screen disappears, the screen goes blank, and the
computer appears to hang. There is no mouse cursor visible, but there is
continual disc activity.
Pressing control+alt+delete has no effect, and I am forced to restart
the PC by pressing the reset switch.
The PC will then restart as usual, with the welcome screen displaying
correctly.
This began to happen shortly after installing a Connect3D ATi Radeon
9550 graphics card with 256MB memory. At first, I thought it was a
problem caused by a corrupt Windows XP installation (I'd been having
other problems), but a fresh install on a new hard disc has the same
issues, so it's not necessarily a Windows issue.
The graphics card appears to be working fine, other than this boot
problem, 99% of the time. Occasionally, when working with graphics or
video, the PC will freeze, the screen will go black, and the monitor
reports no input signal. Other then that, there are no problems.
I have updated the graphics drivers to the the latest available from ATi
(catalyst 6.3), and Windows is up to date (WinXP Pro, SP2, all updates
up to today).
Antivirus is Avast Home Edition. All connections (mouse, keyboard, etc)
are firmly seated.
I like a lean and mean system, so use M Lin's Startup Control Panel and
Startup Monitor to ensure only essential apps and drivers are running at
startup. (see www.mlin.net for info on these apps).
Any ideas? Thanks in advance,
Lumpy
switched off for a while (hours, not days), everything appears to be
fine during the boot sequence. However, when the welcome screen appears,
the word 'Welcome' cannot be seen. Instead, there is a series of black
squares (like when a font doesn't contain the characters you've typed).
When this welcome screen disappears, the screen goes blank, and the
computer appears to hang. There is no mouse cursor visible, but there is
continual disc activity.
Pressing control+alt+delete has no effect, and I am forced to restart
the PC by pressing the reset switch.
The PC will then restart as usual, with the welcome screen displaying
correctly.
This began to happen shortly after installing a Connect3D ATi Radeon
9550 graphics card with 256MB memory. At first, I thought it was a
problem caused by a corrupt Windows XP installation (I'd been having
other problems), but a fresh install on a new hard disc has the same
issues, so it's not necessarily a Windows issue.
The graphics card appears to be working fine, other than this boot
problem, 99% of the time. Occasionally, when working with graphics or
video, the PC will freeze, the screen will go black, and the monitor
reports no input signal. Other then that, there are no problems.
I have updated the graphics drivers to the the latest available from ATi
(catalyst 6.3), and Windows is up to date (WinXP Pro, SP2, all updates
up to today).
Antivirus is Avast Home Edition. All connections (mouse, keyboard, etc)
are firmly seated.
I like a lean and mean system, so use M Lin's Startup Control Panel and
Startup Monitor to ensure only essential apps and drivers are running at
startup. (see www.mlin.net for info on these apps).
Any ideas? Thanks in advance,
Lumpy