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Date:	Wed, 24 Jul 2002 09:51:32 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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> Header to try to get around the problem of my posts to SCOUG getting th=
e
top cut off <
>
>
>
>
> Steven said:
>
>Hardware is always a possibility. However, Wayne has made no mention of=

>problems once past the boot hang. This makes me inclined to put hardwar=
e
>lowish on the list of potential culprits.

>I still suspect a WarpCenter hang. I inquired about this earlier, but
>don't recall receiving a response.

>Wayne, do you use WarpCenter? If so, are you starting if from config.sy=
s
>or from the Startup Folder?

Yes I do use WarpCenter. I tried moving it to the startup folder awhile,
but that didn't change anything, still got hangs, so I put it back in
config.sys.

I want to revise my prior opinion that it's a hardware problem, I'm havin=
g
second thoughts, but only after trashing my system last night and spendin=
g
about 6 hours getting it functional again.

I don't have ready access to spare parts, I'm just a home computer user.
Last night I thought I'd try the plain VGA drivers (too late at night, I
wasn't thinking straight, because that doesn't do a thing about the Matro=
x
hardware). Anyway, I haven't fooled with the system in quite awhile and I=

really got myself into trouble. In short, I tried to use the bootup choic=
es
screen to get booted with VGA drivers, then got a desktop that was
completely unusable because any program I launched ended up in a window
that was off the top of the screen, so I couldn't see part of it and I
couldn't reach the top of the window to click on it to resize or move it =
to
where I could see it. Then I tried choosing the maintenance desktop (or
whatever it's called) at a bootup, thinking I'd go back to the Matrox
drivers (turns out you can't install the Matrox drivers that way, but I
didn't remember that) and I couldn't satisfy the request for a driver dis=
k
with a configuration? (xxxx.ddp) file on it. Then on reboot, I found I'd
lost all my prior desktop archives (no longer on the bootup choices
screen), then the Matrox-supplied install program balked, saying that
OS2KRNL was the wrong version, etc, etc, etc. It just kept on
snowballing!!!

No hangs occurred in multiple reboots while I was doing all this

Anyway, I finally got the Matrox drivers set up by running dspinstal
program instead of the Matrox install program, then reapplied fixpack 15,=

then found some of my recent copies of OS2.ini and OS2SYS.ini and a
config.sys and substituted them. After manually rebuilding warpcenter and=

toolbar, I'm pretty much back where I was... a useable desktop and
intrmittant boot hangs. So, I may have re-introduced the hang when I
restored the ini files, or I was just lucky while not using them. =

However, on thinking about it, it's not really a "hang" per se, "hang" is=
a
misnomer..... because when I have the "blue screen hang" (which BTW is in=

1280x1024 mode) I can:

- ctrl-alt-del to reboot (BTW, I was wrong when I stated that chkdsk wou=
ld
run if you did this when the desktop is up) =

- ctrl-alt-W to bring up Watchcat, which displays processor usage

- use the "print screen" key to print the output of Watchcat on my 4029
laser (or a big black square if I do that with only the blue screen)

- ctrl-esc which brings up a small window listing running programs (but
the window is empty)

In other words, everything works, the operating system is there, there ju=
st
is no desktop and therefore no way to use the mouse or keyboard to launch=
a
program (except those special keyboard-activated functions I listed above=
);
sometimes the cursor is the hourglass wait symbol, sometimes just the
cursor arrow. =

The display seems fine, which is why I'm revising my opinion back to
software, not hardware, as the problem.

Someone mentioned a possible problem with AIC7870.ADD, so I'll try to fin=
d
the latest version, but the problem description doesn't match my issues.

Wayne

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