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Small change, now COMPUTER WONT START !

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6 replies

by ohreli

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I have been trying to solve a problem with my computer hanging for about 60 seconds in the middle of loading programs while apparently the DHCP server searches for an IP address.

Well, I was following advice on another tech forum to try manually assigning an IP address to the NIC card. They said I have IPCP not DHCP, and told me to put in a certain IP address and Default Gateway.

It seemed to help...... After I restarted, there was no delay on startup, but when I started my dial-up broadband connection I got an error message--something about a configuration problem. BUT--I connected! OK, not bad, I thought--no more delay, and maybe this error message will go away.

Curious to try this again, I restarted the computer to see what would happen and.... Computer just hangs and hangs and hangs on the initial screen that shows the motherboard logo. I tried many times to restart over the last 2 days. Sometimes, after about 5 to 10 minutes, it will get past the screen, and show the startup menu. Twice I chose "Startup from last known good configuration." It will start to load up Windows XP, and then just go to a blank dark screen with a faint pink glow and die there. One other time I chose Safe Mode and it seemed to load up drivers until the screen was full and then just hang there forever.

But usually I cant even get past the initial screen. All this from configuring my NIC card? Or is there some hardware malfunction that just happened at the same time totally coincidentally???

By the way------------
I have a SpeedStream 5100 DSL Modem. If it is helpful, there is info on this modem here: http://www.efficient.com/subscriber_networks/5100.shtml

While trying to get the computer to start up I did try unplugging modem from the NIC card. It did not seem to make any difference.

6 replies

by willcomp

Remove NIC from PC (physically remove).

Try again to start in safe mode. Do not select Safe Mode With Networking. Give it time to load, patience is a virtue when troubleshooting.

If PC boots up in safe mode, all is fairly good. Then try restarting in Normal mode with NIC removed.

Post a comment with results and we'll take it from there.

Dalton

by ohreli

I'm awarding these points to you, even though I already had the advice to remove the NIC, because this idea really did get my computer working again, so I give you credit for being on the right track. Even though it was removing the videocard which actually did the trick (See my comments above)--but I wouldnt have done that if I hadnt gone in to remove the NIC!

by douglasb

After trying the suggestin of taking out the NIC to see if that improves the situation, and if it does, try disabling the search for remote drives option. It may be taking time to try and find remote drives, whether they are there or not.

by ohreli

GOOD NEWS! Everything is working great. First I opened up the case to take out the NIC card but--guess what?---I didnt realize--there IS NO NIC card on this computer. Its onboard network. The only extra card is my video card, so I figured, why not take that out? I took it out, started up the computer, and I could tell from the sound of it that it was loading something much more than before. Then I reinstalled the videocard and everything has been perfect since, INCLUDING the problem with the DHCP server. A member on VirtualDr IP address told me this: ?For what it's worth, that sort of dialup-like DSL connection doesn't use DHCP for IP address allocation; it's IPCP. I guess to start with I'd just give the network card a static IP address.Set the IP address to 192.168.1.1 and the gateway to 255.255.255.0, and ignore the rest of the settings.?
This seems to have worked, and there are no more error messages. My computer loads up all the programs in about 20 seconds compared to about a minute and a half at least before. I noticed in my Network settings--before there were two LAN connections---one names SBCGlobal and the other a generic connection (They were both necessary for some reason--if I deleted the generic connection I couldnt connect). BUt now there are THREE LAN connections there. I dont know how that happened but it works now. Equally as mysterious is what the videocard had to do with all of this!! Thanks everyone for all your help.

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