Strange boot problem, am I alone???

I've noticed a weird problem that has been reoccuring and I haven't mentioned it earlier because I thought it was just some software conflict or something, but my windows installation is pretty darn new and I'm not one to mess up driver installations.

Almost everytime I freshly boot up windows, that's from notebook being off to powering on, not all my icons in the taskbar are loaded. Sometimes my Intel/Wireless Proset software isn't loaded, the battery icon when plugged in showing the plug icon does not show, and usually the most common one not to show is the sound icon, for sound properties.

Sound is present, but the icon isn't there. The way to remedy this is for me to LOG OFF, then re-log in. This is beginning to annoy me. I'm thinking this is a driver conflict so I reinstalled my audio drivers, as that one is the most common one to mess up, so we will see if that fixes things.

Also, once in a while when unplugging and plugging back in the ac supply cord into my notebook produces some weird occurrences. It either causes windows to freeze sometimes, or it makes icons in the taskbar go away. This is kinda scary as plugging in and taking out the plug means providing my notebook with current, so I'm thinking something may be wrong with my notebook, or maybe I'm crazy.

Anyhoo' that is the problem, or should I say those are my problems. Just today I had a new problem. I turned on my notebook after using it at school just now, and everything seemed fine except one thing. The icons as usual didn't load fully, but when guiding the cursor over to the taskbar, all I got was the hour glass, so I wait and I wait, but nothing. I decide to shutdown. I hold the power button for 4 seconds and it shuts down. I turn it back on and same thing, so I decide to bring up the Windows Task Manager and logoff from there. All is well after I log back in.

Anybody else have this weirdness going on?
thanks and Cheers,
Mike

 

DOH, crap was this supposed to be in the Software section? OOPS sorry

 

Happens to me, too. Are you on a Windows Domain? I thought it had something to do with the wireless connection usually being disabled, and then the OS trying to access your network profile. The problem is you can't enable the wireless until you're logged in.

Haven't figured out a solution yet. I've just been using the sleep options for the most part.

 

All I can say is try reinstalling Windows & then the drivers on the CD. Not that I don't trust you or anything, but sometimes when I get someone saying that they didn't do anything to the installation, they probably have a bunch of stuff installed. This one girl had a million pop-ups (ad ware) & said she does do anything but type papers. When I got it, she had million downloads and other wierd "freebie" programs on it. So my advice is to just reinstall it & then gradually install you're other needed programs and then see if or where it starts messing up.

 

Are your taskbar properties set to hide inactive icons?

John

 

My taskbar icons are always visible, yes sometimes windows installation crap out for no apparant reason, lately it's been okay since re-installing the audio drivers. I will reinstall windows at a later time after exams just for the helluvit

Imychajluk...my wireless connection is already connected when I log into windows sometimes, or it just connects real fast? You can setup your wireless to connect before you log into windows, you just have to install that option when installing the intel/wireless proset drivers. I don't know if that's the reason for my troubles as the audio icon is the one that's usually missing, along with the ac power icon, and the intel/wireless proset icon. After logging off then logging right back in I'm fine.

I'm sure this is some kind of driver conflict.


MORE FEEDBACK~!!!

Cheers,
Mike

 

Do you have Everest installed? If so, that's probably the cause of the plug/unplug freezing problem. I spent hours tracking down that one. If you're using Everest to help Speedfan "see" all of the sensors, you can get rid of it and just use the latest beta version of Speedfan, which can see all of the sensors just fine.

As far as the taskbar icons are concerned, I've seen that sometimes on my desktop, but not my laptop. I think it has to do with the order in which the various startup items are loaded, but that's just a hunch. One way to track it down would be to use MSConfig to selectively disable various startup programs. A "divide and conquer" approach would be the most effecient. To do that, you disable half of the startup programs and see if the problem occurs. If not, disable the other half. Then divide that half in half and keep going until you isolate the problem. It may be a particular program, or it may be the order in which they load. If it's the order, you can google for techniques to reorder the startup programs. Sometimes it's as simple as uninstalling and reinstalling them. Other times it's more of a pain. Anyway, if nothing else works, you could try this before reinstalling Windows .

 

My further suggestion is to set Windows to bring up a log-on box at the boot up stage. I recall reading something sometime ago that this gives Windows more time at the boot stage to load all the icons. [If you already have a log-on box then this won't make any difference.]

John

 

Yeup I already have the log-on box at startup...dang, I bet it's just crappy windows and my driver installations. Some kind of software conflict.

The other day I shutdown, after a couple hours got home and booted up and guess what? "Your computer has recovered from a serious problem." or however they word it...I was thinking, what?????? I shutdown JUST FINE. jeez I will reinstall windows after exams. grrrrrr

thanks for your replies~!

Cheers,
Mike

 

I also occasionally get a message when waking from hibernate/sleep that the BT Module is incompatible with some function (don't remember the exact error). Maybe it's the BT stack that's hanging it up?

John, I log into my home domain, so I do have a login dialog, and I do have the setting to hide inactive icons. The hide option just moves them to the left, though, so you have to click the arrow to expand the task list to see them. That's not the same as the icons not loading, or did you have something else in mind when you mentioned that?

 

Imychajluk...I don't know much about how the BT Module would behave as I don't have a BT model, but I could take a guess by saying it's probably just like the wireless shutting off when going into sleep mode and returning. Yes some icons do have problems with the windows hide icon thingy, but my problem seems to be different.

Sound is present, but no icon. Darn windows, to hell.

Cheers,
Mike

 

Update on my situation. As I had first thought, my problem was indeed a software/driver issue. I uninstalled SpeedFan along with Everest as Eutychus suggested, and so far no more problems with plugging in and unplugging and getting hangups.

After uninstalling then reinstalling my sound drivers, wireless drivers, ATK drivers, NHC(CHC) all seems to be well.

Oh yeah I forgot to add that I uninstalled and reinstalled the .NET framework 2.0 beta 2, incase that was the problem as I have heard that it is not very stable and causes some problems. I think it might've been just that. A bad installation of a combination of those drivers.

So far I've only had the problem of the sound icon not appearing once since all those fixes. I am happy, very, very happy.

So there you have it folks, just try messing with your driver installations by uninstalling and reinstalling certain components.

Cheers and happy lapping,
Mike

 

Hmm... well if had mentioned that you had all those third party, mumbo-jumbo power managers in your first post, I think we all would've told you to take them off initially.

 

Mumbo jumbo? How can one live without NHC(CHC)? Can't run it without .NET Framework so can't get rid of that. As for SpeedFan and Everest, I'm not going to install Everest again, but will install the latest version of SpeedFan.

Problems have arisen again, but not as frequently. I'm thinking maybe my windows installation is damaged, since my meddling with those BricoPacks. It's like a theme thingy that installs over windows.

I will update you all after I reinstall windows.

Cheers,
Mike

 

Bricopacks...sounds familiar. Are you using CrystalXP? (or something like that?) I think I tried that stuff once... but being the minimalist that I am, I uninstalled it soon after I installed it because it hogged resources.

I've found that the best way to "theme" Windows XP is just hack your Uxtheme.dll file and use Windows msstyles themes. Those seem to be the most stable and take up the least amount of resources.

 

Yeah, I have to admit- I do use NHC, myself. But third party programs are usually the culprit when it comes to "strange boot problems" or other issues. But yes, NHC is a nifty utility.

 

I get the same thing with the taskbar icons showing up sometimes and not others. Like my windows battery icon never showed up when i wanted it to, and then showed up when i finally disabled is...wierd...I've used bootvis to optimize booting too and that sometimes screws with the icons. As for a solution, i have no idea, but i'm guessing a fresh install with competely up to date drivers for everything would help... post if you find anything. I'm gonna try a fresh install after the exams too, gl

 

Hey StevieBoy...yeah it's very strange. I had this problem with my desktop once before, but after uninstalling and reinstalling some drivers the problem went away.

I'm guessing the same thing here for our laptops. Could be the order of the way we installed the drivers, could be windows that doesn't like something, like NHC(CHC) with .NET framework 2.0 beta 2 maybe. I really hope it's not that, as I cannot live without NHC(CHC) now.

I wonder if I should try the older version that's non-beta, but a full version. Was it 1.8?

Anyhoo' yes the windows battery icon doesn't like to show up very often.

Try this out and see if it fixes anything to see our problems are related somehow.

Logoff after a fresh login, and re-login. Should set all your icons back to normal.

Just wondering what anti-virus or boottime programs do you have installed, because it could be something that's delaying or preventing other programs from loading on fresh boot maybe?

Hrmm...I use Avast.

Cheers,
Mike