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Date:	Tue, 23 Jul 2002 19:37:26 PST7
From:	Wayne Cypress <waynecypress@compuserve.com >
Reply-To:	scoug-help@scoug.com
To:	< "INTERNET:scoug-help@scoug.com" > scoug-help@scoug.com >
Subject:	SCOUG-Help: Boot hang: still there

Content Type: text/plain

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Wayne,

About 1 year ago I also suffered from an intermittent boot hang. In my
case the system would stop with the hourglass in the middle of an
otherwise blank aqua screen. None of the keys on the keyboard
functioned. The mouse did not work. I could not even reboot by pressing
the MB ON/OFF switch. Somehow that was frozen. I had to flip the switch
OFF on the power strip.

It turned out that my problem was the new Matrox 450 video card that I
bought online and received in the mail. After I swapped out the card for
a new ATI board, which I just happened to have, everything worked fine.
I know that Steven advised you that your hardware is probably OK,
because you can boot to that other OS with no problems. I'm not so sure.
>It may still be your hardware. I believe OS/2 to be just a little more
>tempermental in this area and thus more susceptible to bad or deficient
>hardware. That's my believe.

>A couple of suggestions:

> 1. I would start swapping out hardware, especially the video=

card, just to see

> 2. Also, while I was trying to narrow down the boot hang
culprit, I
>would have to restore an old previous version of my OS2.INI, OS2SYS.INI
>and desktop files, whenever the system hung. About 90% of the time that
>worked on the first try and I had my system back, but temporarily. I
>believe that what was happening here was that I was changing the timing
>in my system JUST ENOUGH to make a difference.
>
>When I had to change out the OS2.INI, etc. files, I would first boot to
>a minimal OS/2 system, using the OS/2 boot diskettes. Then I would
>change out the OS2.INI, OS2SYS.INI, CONFIG.SYS and/or desktop files,
>using 3 different batch files, which I had on one of the diskettes. I
>had up to 20 generations of the OS2.INI. etc. files on my second hard
>drive, D:\. The batch files made it very easy for me to change out any
>of these files and select a particular generation. I used Gamma Tech
>Sentry to save up 20 generations of these files. You should get UniMaint=

>and set it up to do the same thing. Make it as easy as you can on
>yourself with regard to using batch files and saved generations so that
>you can temporarily restore your system until you can find the culprit.

>I even had a batch file to change the Hardware Manager to/from "Full
>Hardware Detection" and "No Hardware Detection". Sometimes that helped
>with the hangs.

>Anyway, I bet it's hardware!!

>HCM

Well, I tend to agree it's hardware, and may be timing-dependent, but it'=
s
only suspicion. My experience (I used to work with mainframes, not much
experience with PC's) is that flaky intermittant problems are generally
hardware, that's why I did the reseating of all my adapter cards. And, I
use a Matrox Mystique display adapter (I have been thinking of getting a
G450)... unfortunately it's currently the only display adapter I have.
Strange though that it wouldn't give other problems while it's running,
unless it somehow gets downloaded with software at boot time using
different "pins" than are used for running (talking out of my hat, I have=

no idea how these things work), but that still doesn't explain why
Windows95 boots.

I do not have to change out the OS/2.INI or even to use the on/off
switch.... generally if I repeat the boot enough times it will eventually=

work, but sometimes it is really really stubborn. =

I think for the time being that I'll try moving the "MGA Hot Keys"
application out of my startup folder and hope that doesn't blow me out of=

the water.

Thanks for your thoughts and for relating your experience.

Wayne =

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