Vista Home Prem. Problem -- anyone seen this??

[LoneStar]

I have a 3 month-old Dell XPS 410, nVidia 7300LE graphics, and other stock
hardware with latest drivers. "Much" of the time after booting up, I can't
open the Control Panel, open many Vista games, I lose my Aero 3-D desktop
functions, and can't right-click the desktop to select Personalize (there
may be more). The desktop reverts to Vista Basic 2D. Restarting after a
warm boot (sometimes only after a cold restart) fixes everything. The next
day's bootup could go either way!
The Events Viewer and Windows logs show no differences in errors, warnings,
or information logs between a good or bad boot, and there are no error
messages during boot. This has been discussed before but the thread died.
My system is totally clean with very few additional apps installed -- all
are MS certified.
Has ANYONE else seen this on their system?? This problem is almost
impossible to diagnose due to lack of error messages, but there must be
something seriously wrong if I can't open Control Panel, etc. Any comments
would be appreciated!!

EW

 

[Charlie Tame]

I have a 3 month-old Dell XPS 410, nVidia 7300LE graphics, and other stock
hardware with latest drivers. "Much" of the time after booting up, I can't
open the Control Panel, open many Vista games, I lose my Aero 3-D desktop
functions, and can't right-click the desktop to select Personalize (there
may be more). The desktop reverts to Vista Basic 2D. Restarting after a
warm boot (sometimes only after a cold restart) fixes everything. The next
day's bootup could go either way!
The Events Viewer and Windows logs show no differences in errors, warnings,
or information logs between a good or bad boot, and there are no error
messages during boot. This has been discussed before but the thread died.
My system is totally clean with very few additional apps installed -- all
are MS certified.
Has ANYONE else seen this on their system?? This problem is almost
impossible to diagnose due to lack of error messages, but there must be
something seriously wrong if I can't open Control Panel, etc. Any comments
would be appreciated!!

EW

Sounds like it could be hardware, memory could be a good candidate. Do
you see any odd numbers when looking at the properties related to
memory, or maybe task manager?

Of course there's other possibilities so see what others think before
doing anything drastic like spending money or unsoldering memory chips
with a blowtorch

 

[Dana Cline]

I agree that it sounds like a hardware error - either memory or more likely
the graphics card. Since its only 3 months old, you should have full
warranty with onsite replacement. Give that a try, and if they can't help
you, tell them you want to "escalate to a supervisor"...

Dana Cline - MCE MVP

 

[Mark Maylon]

I disagree. The functions you refer to are all vista upgrade functions.
Sounds like you are loosing your activation. I had this problem with a
customers box. His would read activated but the windows validation tool said
it was not.
After trying to fix for severla hours i call microsoft. There reply was to
reactivate using phone method only to fix problem. It worked fine after re
activation. His pc had very much the same symtoms as yours it was like a
slot machine today it all worked tomarrow it my not all work.

Mark

 

[LoneStar]

I disagree. The functions you refer to are all vista upgrade functions.
Sounds like you are loosing your activation. I had this problem with a
customers box. His would read activated but the windows validation tool
said it was not.
After trying to fix for severla hours i call microsoft. There reply was to
reactivate using phone method only to fix problem. It worked fine after re
activation. His pc had very much the same symtoms as yours it was like a
slot machine today it all worked tomarrow it my not all work.

I agree also that it is not a hardware (or memory) problem -- I've spent
hours/days ensuring all that.

The next time I have this problem, I'm taking your advice and checking the
activation, login data, and all that rot in the Events Viewer. I thought I
had checked that before, and all showed well, but will try again.

I also know that this problem is not THAT uncommon -- I've read about it
before here and there. In fact, many people may have this problem, but if
they don't try to access the Control Panel, certain MS games (in the Program
Files), desktop personalization, then they won't notice it! A typical web
surfer and email junkie would never see a problem.

Oh well, I'll get to the bottom of this some day. FYI, my Dell booted up
just fine the last couple of days -- all works perfectly. However, tomorrow
it may freak out on those few items mentioned before.

EW

 

[LoneStar]

Sounds like it could be hardware, memory could be a good candidate. Do you
see any odd numbers when looking at the properties related to memory, or
maybe task manager?

Of course there's other possibilities so see what others think before
doing anything drastic like spending money or unsoldering memory chips
with a blowtorch

Thanks for the reply. Quick re-reply: no error messages of any kind. I
still think the answer may be in the Events Viewer. I need to compare EVERY
bit of annotation during bootup on both my good boots and the bad one. That
will be a chore, but should provide the answer, maybe....

EW