task bar feezes on logon for about 15 mins then comes good,

[Guest]

If we logon to the laptop, after about the 3rd time it's logged the task bar
freezes for about 15 mins, during this freeze everything on the desktop works
fine, another person can logon, but it's not till their 2nd or 3rd time they
logon it also freezes for them.

The saga so far:
It originally had the bagel.ai & fotos.zip virus's (laptop user left his
laptop permanently logged on without rebooting for about 6 months), when we
discovered the task bar was freezing, we formatted the laptop using the
TE2100 recovery cd's, it still had problems so we sent it back to Toshiba &
had the motherboard replaced under warranty. The note that came backwith it
from Toshiba was that it had software problems. We reformatted again & it
froze during windows setup, so we sent back, they reformatted wit hthe
Toshiba Recovery cd & tested for hardware problems - none detected. When
received back we started loading our regular software & sure enough the task
bar has started freezing again, but this time we notice, anyone who log's on
for the 1st time doesn't get the task bar freezing, it's after 2 or 3 logons.

We have approx 300 pcs & laptops on our network & none have had any problems
like this.

 

[John]

No idea what would be causing it, but I have some suggestions for you
that might lead you to a solution.

First, reply & list what you're loading on the hard disk.. what programs? is
it xp sp1 or sp2?
What's running automatically when a user logs in? What's in msconfig
(start/run/msconfig) under the
startup tab?

Second, and I know this is going to sound really dumb... but shutdown the
laptop, unplug it from the network, walk across the office,
shutdown a working machine (a desktop is probably best)
unplug the desktop from the network, use the cable from the desktop to plug
the laptop
into the network, start up the laptop, and see if it still happens. If it
does,
then shutdown the laptop, replace the cable on the desktop, and restart
the laptop again... this time not plugged into the network at all, and
see if it still happens. And if it still does, try running the laptop on
battery power only.

Third, pay particular attention to who logs in to the laptop and in which
order & after how long.
Let's say you've got three users... Sally, Mike and Amy. Does it work any
different when the second user is Amy as opposed to the second user being
Mike?
Does it happen more readily if there's 2 minutes between the first and
second user logon or if there's 15 minutes
or does it not matter?

Fourth - when you install the system, do you then go to
windowsupdate.microsoft.com to get the latest
service packs for your system?

Here's what I'm thinking:

First thought - some particular program (or maybe two or more interacting
with one another) could
be causing it. What I'm specifically interested in is a) programs which are
particular to the laptop (i.e. different
from standard desktops) and b) the interaction between the programs that
Toshiba installs as part of
their recovery disk and your standard set of programs.

Second thought - it could be a network error... something that happens at a
certain timeframe. Network address
renewal is one thing that happens automatically (on most networks) that the
user never knows is happening. Or
it could be a faulty network cable that still works well enough to login but
doesn't always work... maybe the
second user is jarring the system & the cable. Or perhaps it's a power
fluctuation.

Third thought - If your system uses roaming profiles (most do), then you
could have a corruption in one of them
that's automatically downloading from the network when that user logs in.
The time bit is again relating to network
things that happen automatically without the user knowing it.

Fourth thought - some updates help the system, others cause more problems.
it's worth a try though if you've
not tried it already.



20 years of experience diagnosing weird problems just like this one tells me
that

a) I don't have enough information - hence the question about what you're
loading onto the system and

b) it's most likely going to be something that you're either not knowing
that you're doing or something that
you're not noticing that you (or your users) are doing -- like printing to a
particular printer (so that it has to use
particular software to print to that printer.. and there's a conflict
between that software & the rest of the system.)

Regards,

-JB


If we logon to the laptop, after about the 3rd time it's logged the task bar
freezes for about 15 mins, during this freeze everything on the desktop
works
fine, another person can logon, but it's not till their 2nd or 3rd time they
logon it also freezes for them.

The saga so far:
It originally had the bagel.ai & fotos.zip virus's (laptop user left his
laptop permanently logged on without rebooting for about 6 months), when we
discovered the task bar was freezing, we formatted the laptop using the
TE2100 recovery cd's, it still had problems so we sent it back to Toshiba &
had the motherboard replaced under warranty. The note that came backwith it
from Toshiba was that it had software problems. We reformatted again & it
froze during windows setup, so we sent back, they reformatted wit hthe
Toshiba Recovery cd & tested for hardware problems - none detected. When
received back we started loading our regular software & sure enough the task
bar has started freezing again, but this time we notice, anyone who log's on
for the 1st time doesn't get the task bar freezing, it's after 2 or 3
logons.

We have approx 300 pcs & laptops on our network & none have had any problems
like this.

 

[Guest]

Hi John,

We found by uninstalling sp2 our problem was resolved. I'll watch out for
it as I upgrade the other Toshiba's to SP2 if this becomes an issue again.

The network cable we've had it plugged into various locations & at 2 sites,
using different cables and I didn't check the time b/w freezing on the
different users, but all is resolved without SP2, & we've reallocated the
laptop to another user in a different office.

Thanks for your time & help.