Startup hangs before video kicks in - help!

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.perform_maintain (More info?)

This has been happening, more often than not, for the past couple months:

Upon booting up the computer, I see the bluish screen where you can get to
the BIOS, then I see the black-background screen with the 'Microsoft Windows'
logo, then that blanks out and hangs. What I'm used to seeing next in a
correct startup would be the cursor appearing just before the blue 'Windows
XP' screen and then the user login display.

Upon hanging, the hard drive light flickers on and off for a few minutes,
then all HDD activity stops. Sometimes I sense that things are starting
correctly other than the fact that nothing is being displayed. On rare
occasions, the 'black hang of death' is punctuated by the Windows startup
sound....but everything stays dark. Anywhere from 2 to 10 hard reboots later,
everything will be fine - until the next time.

I don't know if this makes sense, but the black-hang appears to Not be a
lack of any signal going to the screen - more like a black signal being sent.

I'm guessing that some sort of conflict developed after installing
something, however I've not installed any new hardware since long before this
problem began. I've installed software but didn't keep good enough records
to selectively uninstall various programs as an attempt to debug. I Have
uninstalled several programs I decided after loading that I didn't need.

I've checked for viruses, adware, and Trojans (using triple-redundant
software suggested by the kind people at CastleCops). I've defragged the
HDD, turned off non-essential software startup processes, and am completely
stumped!

Any and all help/suggestions at this point would be much appreciated! Am
running XPHome on a Dell Inspiron 2500 laptop with 800MHz Celeron, and 192MB
RAM

Tim

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.perform_maintain (More info?)

You can add the "/sos" switch in the boot.ini file and it will display the
device drivers as they are loading. Also, you can add the "/bootlog" switch
in the boot.ini file, it will write a log to %SystemDrive%\NTBTLOG.txt
(normally C:\NTbtlog.txt) as the system is booting, and the next boot, the
next oldest boot log becomes NTbtlog.bak. Between the two, perhaps, if/when
the next time the problem occurs, you can see on the screen or seen in the
log what driver may be hanging the boot process up.

--

Star Fleet Admiral Q @ your Service!

http://www.google.com
Google is your "Friend"

"Choirpower" <Choirpower@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:1A7BAC80-88E6-4987-9B3E-B7D3C40C4AFF@microsoft.com...
> This has been happening, more often than not, for the past couple months:
>
> Upon booting up the computer, I see the bluish screen where you can get to
> the BIOS, then I see the black-background screen with the 'Microsoft
> Windows'
> logo, then that blanks out and hangs. What I'm used to seeing next in a
> correct startup would be the cursor appearing just before the blue
> 'Windows
> XP' screen and then the user login display.
>
> Upon hanging, the hard drive light flickers on and off for a few minutes,
> then all HDD activity stops. Sometimes I sense that things are starting
> correctly other than the fact that nothing is being displayed. On rare
> occasions, the 'black hang of death' is punctuated by the Windows startup
> sound....but everything stays dark. Anywhere from 2 to 10 hard reboots
> later,
> everything will be fine - until the next time.
>
> I don't know if this makes sense, but the black-hang appears to Not be a
> lack of any signal going to the screen - more like a black signal being
> sent.
>
> I'm guessing that some sort of conflict developed after installing
> something, however I've not installed any new hardware since long before
> this
> problem began. I've installed software but didn't keep good enough
> records
> to selectively uninstall various programs as an attempt to debug. I Have
> uninstalled several programs I decided after loading that I didn't need.
>
> I've checked for viruses, adware, and Trojans (using triple-redundant
> software suggested by the kind people at CastleCops). I've defragged the
> HDD, turned off non-essential software startup processes, and am
> completely
> stumped!
>
> Any and all help/suggestions at this point would be much appreciated! Am
> running XPHome on a Dell Inspiron 2500 laptop with 800MHz Celeron, and
> 192MB
> RAM
>
> Tim

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.perform_maintain (More info?)

Thank you, Admiral! I will try that, although spending most of a day going
through triple-redundant checks for spyware, virii, trojans, and junk seems
to have made a difference. Either that, or forcing the machine to re-find
all its USB componants by deleting that from the System/Hardware list (to fix
a different problem) may have made the boot-time smoother.

"Star Fleet Admiral Q" wrote:

> You can add the "/sos" switch in the boot.ini file and it will display the
> device drivers as they are loading. Also, you can add the "/bootlog" switch
> in the boot.ini file, it will write a log to %SystemDrive%\NTBTLOG.txt
> (normally C:\NTbtlog.txt) as the system is booting, and the next boot, the
> next oldest boot log becomes NTbtlog.bak. Between the two, perhaps, if/when
> the next time the problem occurs, you can see on the screen or seen in the
> log what driver may be hanging the boot process up.
>
> --
>
> Star Fleet Admiral Q @ your Service!
>
> http://www.google.com
> Google is your "Friend"
>
> "Choirpower" <Choirpower@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:1A7BAC80-88E6-4987-9B3E-B7D3C40C4AFF@microsoft.com...
> > This has been happening, more often than not, for the past couple months:
> >
> > Upon booting up the computer, I see the bluish screen where you can get to
> > the BIOS, then I see the black-background screen with the 'Microsoft
> > Windows'
> > logo, then that blanks out and hangs. What I'm used to seeing next in a
> > correct startup would be the cursor appearing just before the blue
> > 'Windows
> > XP' screen and then the user login display.
> >
> > Upon hanging, the hard drive light flickers on and off for a few minutes,
> > then all HDD activity stops. Sometimes I sense that things are starting
> > correctly other than the fact that nothing is being displayed. On rare
> > occasions, the 'black hang of death' is punctuated by the Windows startup
> > sound....but everything stays dark. Anywhere from 2 to 10 hard reboots
> > later,
> > everything will be fine - until the next time.
> >
> > I don't know if this makes sense, but the black-hang appears to Not be a
> > lack of any signal going to the screen - more like a black signal being
> > sent.
> >
> > I'm guessing that some sort of conflict developed after installing
> > something, however I've not installed any new hardware since long before
> > this
> > problem began. I've installed software but didn't keep good enough
> > records
> > to selectively uninstall various programs as an attempt to debug. I Have
> > uninstalled several programs I decided after loading that I didn't need.
> >
> > I've checked for viruses, adware, and Trojans (using triple-redundant
> > software suggested by the kind people at CastleCops). I've defragged the
> > HDD, turned off non-essential software startup processes, and am
> > completely
> > stumped!
> >
> > Any and all help/suggestions at this point would be much appreciated! Am
> > running XPHome on a Dell Inspiron 2500 laptop with 800MHz Celeron, and
> > 192MB
> > RAM
> >
> > Tim
>
>
>