Win98 SE Logon to Network: THIS IS WEIRD!!!

[Dave]

Hardware: Gateway P3-866, 256MB RAM, 30GB HDD, 3COM NIC etc.

OS: WIN98SE

Other: connected to WINNT4 LAN

Problem: Booting from cold start does not produce the normal client logon screen which allows entry of ID, password and domain; it just goes straight to WIN98 desktop. All apps run fine (except those that require network resources, no errors in device manager, examination of info under Network icon in Control Panel reveals everything just as it is supposed to look / as it looks in all 500+ of our other PCs that are connected to the network.

THE WEIRD PART: Doing a START / Logoff returns the proper client logon screen and logon allowed and everything works perfectly! Shutting down cold and powering up brings you straight back to the Windows desktop, with no opportunity to logon to network.

WHAT WE HAVE TRIED:
1. checking BIOS settings
2. checking / resetting Network settings (including erasing the PWL file)
3. putting in new NIC
4. reloading OS and drivers from Gateway System /restore CD
5. FDISKing and FORMAT and doing totally clean install from WIN98SE CD (not the one that came from Gateway)
6. replaced AGP card

YET TO TRY:
1.pulling everything but NIC and vid card and trying complete reload
2. cursing at some poor Gateway support person who is about 1ns away from getting unshirted hell: 3 out of 12 new PCs were bunged up in some time-consuming way or another.

Anyone ever seen this before? Suggestions?

Thanks

 

[err]

Check your Network properties, make sure logon is using "client for ms windows"

Make sure your NIC driver is properly installed.

If it is connected to WinNT domain, go to access control tab and make sure "login to NT domain" is checked and domain name specified.

Hope it helps.

eRr

 

[Dave]

Err:

Done all that. Trying chnging it to something else and then changing it back: No go ... cold boot ALWAYS fails to give the client logon screen ... warm logoff always produces the proper client logon and the connection with the network functions perfectly.

We will be digging into this first thing this morning.

Thanks for the suggestions.

 

[perry]

Never seen a problem like that before. When I have ran into funny problems, I'd remove all the networking components in the network control panel, reboot, and add them back. That would solve some problems.

Other problems were caused by not having a IRQ miniport driver installed, but those were on in-house built systems, not Gateways.

I say call Gateway. They've been good when I've had to call them for support on our business machines (umm... the hard drive was literally smoking on this 2 week old system.. they just replaced the whole damn thing for us).

Have you tried a different PCI slot for the NIC?

 

[Ronzon]

Common networking "bug" in Win98SE. Here is the MS knowledge base fix:

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q141/8/58.asp

 

[Dave]

Ronzon:

Deleting the autologon<x> key from the registry seems to have solved the problem.

Thanks,

Dave