----- Original Message -----
From: Mike Buraczewski <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, September 14, 1999 10:46 PM
Subject: [PCBUILD] Intel Motherboard System is Flakey


> The problem as defined by the customer is this:  When using MS Office
> products, especially Word, when he selects File/Print it takes as much
as 2
> minutes for the print dialog box to appear on the screen.  After the
print
> dialog has appeared for the first time, the next time he attempts to
print
> the dialog box pops up instantly.  This is a recent change identifed
during
>
> I tested this and found that all of the common dialog boxes are slow,
but
> especially the print dialog and not only in MS Office products, but
also in
> WordPad.  If I run in Safe Mode the dialog box pops up instantly.  If
I
> delete the Win.ini file, the machine works well until I install any
printer
> drivers, then it gets flakey again.
>
> At times, this machine overall moves like molassas.  The mouse is
extremely
> slow, and the HDD hammers like crazy.  At other times, it seems to
work okay
> except for the dialog box problems.

Since the problem moves to another machine with the hard drive and
replacing the hard drive on the customer machine makes it work OK, if
the problem is hardware, it must be the hard drive.  However, the fact
that the machine works fine in Safe Mode points to it being a software /
driver or configuration problem.  How much room is left on the hard
drive?  How much virtual memory is he using?  Check how many files are
in his Temp directory.  I'd say that there is something wrong in this
area or with the common dialog files themselves.  A reinstall of Windows
and Office would probably fix this problem and seems like the fastest
way to get it going again.

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