Two things are happening when you see the Windows logo, the pc is shifting
to 32bit mode, and the video is changing to your default graphics setting,
say (800x600 and truecolor).  One or the other could be hanging.  A couple
of boots into safe mode may help pinpoint the trouble. Or, from Start, Run,
enter msconfig, and try a few boots with interactive loading, etc.  The
hardcore method is to pull all non-essential hardware, and then start a
pattern of booting up, then replacing one device, and booting up, etc until
it starts hanging again.  Its not unheard of for the system to need a little
heat to make a card or chip 'sit' properly in its slot, and all this
hardware swapping will find that, too. I like to focus on the video,
especially since some users mistakenly assume a 'hang' when in fact windows
is quite healthy and running, only the video has stopped so you can't easily
know that.
Then again, a close friend of mine never bothered to fix this symptom in his
P-iii and it ran without incident, and might still be if it hadn't been
replaced with an athlon recently.
Tom Turak

-----Original Message-----
From: Edwin Bogert [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Wednesday, October 03, 2001 3:27 PM

Here's one for all you thinkers.---When I first power up my computer, it
goes about halfway thru the boot to the windows logo screen and then the
screen turns black with an hourglass icon in the middle and just stays
there. When I push the reset button it boots up to the safe mode screen. If
I select normal mode it boots up to normal and from then everything is
alright. Then, when I go to Start/ restart, it boots up normally.  In other
words, the only time this happens is when I do a cold power-up. My system
consists of the following:
Acorp mobo with Via Apollo pro 133a chipset---via 686B
64mb sdram
celeron 633mhz fcpga
SB Live Value Sound
Diamond S540 Stealth III display adaptor
Maxtor 27.5gb HD--with 2 identified bad sectors totalling 2.48mb

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