Here's what I've got: Athlon 1900+, K7S5A, 512MB generic PC2100 DDR, 340W PS, Maxtor 20GB HDD, GeForce 2 GTS, 3Com NIC.
Here's what I'm seeing: when I first started trying to do a clean install of XP Pro, I was using generic PC133 SDRAM. I would get a bluescreen/freeze/spontaneous reboot in XP setup just after it said "Starting Windows..." and could not get past that point. Playing with BIOS options varied the error messages but didn't get me anywhere.
So I bought the DDR stick. The first evening I tried it, it got a bit further in the install, far enough that I could create and format a new partition, but would bluescreen at various points therein or shortly thereafter. I shut it down and went to bed. Next morning, I fired it up just to get the error code from the bluescreen so I could take it into the shop. The silly thing went all the way through the install!
XP worked fine at that point except for a couple of things. First, booting is extremely slow. Specifically, it brings up the graphical Windows XP logo screen, spins the progress bar about 3 times, then goes black. The monitor light is green, so it's still getting a signal, but the screen is black. It stays this way for about 5 minutes, then brings up the Welcome screen. The sound plays, then it sits there for 30-45 seconds. Then the wallpaper comes up, and it sits there for 30-45 seconds. Then the task bar comes up and from then on it works without any problems. The only other thing I've seen is on the Diablo II install, which hangs for 5-10 minutes after I answer all its prompts, then completes without further incident. Many other Installshield installs complete without incident.
Things I've tried: I tried forcing it to use the standard HAL instead of the ACPI HAL but the behavior stayed the same. I tried several different versions of the BIOS, and am currently using the latest one, released a few days ago. Tried setting Other Boot Devices to No. Tried using static IP addresses. Tried disabling ICS. Tried the SIS AGP driver on the ECS site rather than the one from the XP CD. Ran memcheck86, no errors. Tried using boot logging, but without timestamps it's hard to see which driver, if any, is causing the delay.
I could really use some other ideas to try, or some suggestions for isolating whatever driver is causing the delay once the screen goes black.
Thanks,
Rob
Here's what I'm seeing: when I first started trying to do a clean install of XP Pro, I was using generic PC133 SDRAM. I would get a bluescreen/freeze/spontaneous reboot in XP setup just after it said "Starting Windows..." and could not get past that point. Playing with BIOS options varied the error messages but didn't get me anywhere.
So I bought the DDR stick. The first evening I tried it, it got a bit further in the install, far enough that I could create and format a new partition, but would bluescreen at various points therein or shortly thereafter. I shut it down and went to bed. Next morning, I fired it up just to get the error code from the bluescreen so I could take it into the shop. The silly thing went all the way through the install!
XP worked fine at that point except for a couple of things. First, booting is extremely slow. Specifically, it brings up the graphical Windows XP logo screen, spins the progress bar about 3 times, then goes black. The monitor light is green, so it's still getting a signal, but the screen is black. It stays this way for about 5 minutes, then brings up the Welcome screen. The sound plays, then it sits there for 30-45 seconds. Then the wallpaper comes up, and it sits there for 30-45 seconds. Then the task bar comes up and from then on it works without any problems. The only other thing I've seen is on the Diablo II install, which hangs for 5-10 minutes after I answer all its prompts, then completes without further incident. Many other Installshield installs complete without incident.
Things I've tried: I tried forcing it to use the standard HAL instead of the ACPI HAL but the behavior stayed the same. I tried several different versions of the BIOS, and am currently using the latest one, released a few days ago. Tried setting Other Boot Devices to No. Tried using static IP addresses. Tried disabling ICS. Tried the SIS AGP driver on the ECS site rather than the one from the XP CD. Ran memcheck86, no errors. Tried using boot logging, but without timestamps it's hard to see which driver, if any, is causing the delay.
I could really use some other ideas to try, or some suggestions for isolating whatever driver is causing the delay once the screen goes black.
Thanks,
Rob
And have you scanned for viruses? If not, there's a 
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