Start-up nightmare

[bruce hight]

A day ago I got some help here with my computer problem after I installed a
Turtle Beach Santa Cruz soundcard. Those suggestions helped, at least at
first, but now I'm in a new nightmare. The problems are probably related,
but I'm not sure how.

Here's the immediate problem: The computer freezes within a few minutes
after I boot up -- if I can even boot up. Sometimes it freezes during
boot-up, sometimes during Windows XP loading, sometimes after it's loaded
and I've even done one or two things such as check my e-mail before it
freezes again.

Sometimes when I reboot it just freezes up again. Sometimes it will reboot
part of the way and then freeze. Sometimes it will ask me if I want to go
into safe mode but usually not; sometimes it even freezes up when I'm trying
to decide.

I pulled the Santa Cruz card and even managed to get the drivers removed,
and reenabled the on-board audio, but none of that helped.

Specs: IWill 333-R motherboard, Athlon XP 1700, 512 PC2700 memory, Windows
XP. Until I put in the Santa Cruz card, this computer worked fine. White
box. 60-gig Seagate hardrive; DVD drive; CD-RW drive. (Note, until all this
happened, bios would report 333 memory at start-up; then it dropped to 200.
Your help showed me how to bump that to 266, but I could no longer bump it
back up to 333 and asynchronous mode without causing problems. It's back to
266.)

I'm about ready to give up and take it to a tech, but wanted to see if
anyone had a silver bullet.

Thanks in advance. (I'm now using my eight-year-old Dell backup.)

 

[Trent©]

A day ago I got some help here with my computer problem after I installed a
Turtle Beach Santa Cruz soundcard. Those suggestions helped, at least at
first, but now I'm in a new nightmare. The problems are probably related,
but I'm not sure how.

Here's the immediate problem: The computer freezes within a few minutes
after I boot up -- if I can even boot up. Sometimes it freezes during
boot-up, sometimes during Windows XP loading, sometimes after it's loaded
and I've even done one or two things such as check my e-mail before it
freezes again.

Did your mainboard have a sound card on-board? Did you turn it off on
the board?

Sometimes when I reboot it just freezes up again. Sometimes it will reboot
part of the way and then freeze. Sometimes it will ask me if I want to go
into safe mode but usually not; sometimes it even freezes up when I'm trying
to decide.

If you get into Windows again, go into Device Manager and check for
conflicts.

I pulled the Santa Cruz card and even managed to get the drivers removed,
and reenabled the on-board audio, but none of that helped.

Specs: IWill 333-R motherboard, Athlon XP 1700, 512 PC2700 memory, Windows
XP. Until I put in the Santa Cruz card, this computer worked fine.

Sounds like a conflict with the sound card and some other device.

White
box. 60-gig Seagate hardrive; DVD drive; CD-RW drive. (Note, until all this
happened, bios would report 333 memory at start-up; then it dropped to 200.
Your help showed me how to bump that to 266, but I could no longer bump it
back up to 333 and asynchronous mode without causing problems. It's back to
266.)

I'm about ready to give up and take it to a tech, but wanted to see if
anyone had a silver bullet.

Thanks in advance. (I'm now using my eight-year-old Dell backup.)

Try to start from the beginning. Uninstall the sound card (there
might be a specific utility that you can run from the mfg. to find and
delete ALL the pertinent files). Enable the on-board sound. Set all
your BIOS settings to the default. Boot.

Did you read the manual for the sound card?...and go to their site for
any upgrades/fixes? Try a Google search for your card/problems.

Good luck.


Have a nice week...

Trent

If the cheese isn't yours...its Nacho cheese!

 

[Bruce]

1. My main board has built-in audio. Prior to installing the Santa Cruz, I
moved the jumper to disable main board audio. At first, the new sound card
worked just fine (yes, I went to the Turtle Beach site for any updated
drivers; it reported everything was up-to-date). When the other problems
began to crop up, I removed the Santa Cruz and reenabled main board sound.
On the one or two times I actually made it into Windows, the sound worked.

2. Every time I was able to check Device Manager, it reported everything was
fine.

Thanks for taking the time to respond.

 

[jamotto]

A day ago I got some help here with my computer problem after I installed a
Turtle Beach Santa Cruz soundcard. Those suggestions helped, at least at
first, but now I'm in a new nightmare. The problems are probably related,
but I'm not sure how.

Here's the immediate problem: The computer freezes within a few minutes
after I boot up -- if I can even boot up. Sometimes it freezes during
boot-up, sometimes during Windows XP loading, sometimes after it's loaded
and I've even done one or two things such as check my e-mail before it
freezes again.

Sometimes when I reboot it just freezes up again. Sometimes it will reboot
part of the way and then freeze. Sometimes it will ask me if I want to go
into safe mode but usually not; sometimes it even freezes up when I'm trying
to decide.

I pulled the Santa Cruz card and even managed to get the drivers removed,
and reenabled the on-board audio, but none of that helped.

Specs: IWill 333-R motherboard, Athlon XP 1700, 512 PC2700 memory, Windows
XP. Until I put in the Santa Cruz card, this computer worked fine. White
box. 60-gig Seagate hardrive; DVD drive; CD-RW drive. (Note, until all this
happened, bios would report 333 memory at start-up; then it dropped to 200.
Your help showed me how to bump that to 266, but I could no longer bump it
back up to 333 and asynchronous mode without causing problems. It's back to
266.)

I'm about ready to give up and take it to a tech, but wanted to see if
anyone had a silver bullet.

Thanks in advance. (I'm now using my eight-year-old Dell backup.)

It's not a silver bullet but you might try and go into the bios and
enable the setting "Force Update ESCD" it will go into effect when you
restart the computer it will clear an reset the resource config for
all the addin cards etc, It sounds like you might have a resource
conflict.

 

[Trent©]

1. My main board has built-in audio. Prior to installing the Santa Cruz, I
moved the jumper to disable main board audio.

Are you sure that's what that jumper was for? I'm not an expert on
every board out there. But every board I've seen so far has the
option to disable the on-board stuff in the BIOS...just by changing
one of the settings there. I've never seen one that needs to have
jumpers moved.

At first, the new sound card
worked just fine (yes, I went to the Turtle Beach site for any updated
drivers; it reported everything was up-to-date).

Did it work fine BEFORE the update?...or after?...or both. It sure
sounds like that sound card is somehow the culprit.

When the other problems
began to crop up, I removed the Santa Cruz and reenabled main board sound.
On the one or two times I actually made it into Windows, the sound worked.

See if the install created an autoexec or config. You might also try
goin' into the command prompt and run 'set'. Maybe you can see
something in the environment that looks suspicious.

You might also try just loading into a system disk...just to see if
it'll go there and hold there without any drivers being loaded. This
might tell you if the problem is in the BIOS and/or jumper
settings...sans any real operating system.

Good luck...let us know.


Have a nice week...

Trent

If the cheese isn't yours...its Nacho cheese, man!