Bob:

        Thank you to you and others who responded to my query.  Here's what's been
happening since.

        As per your suggestion, Bob, I went into the CMOS to see what, if any,
settings I could find and change that would help.  I found a couple of
places where "PCI" devices were adjustable and so did what I could (scary
stuff...Ha!).  Nothing there I did helped.  So, I called Compaq and first
spoke to a young man whose only suggestion was to download/install
"...service pack SP10911...," which I did...to no avail.  (The "SP" was
supposed to update my BIOS but I found it to be the same date as the one I
already had and it made no difference anyway.)  Once more I called Compaq
and spoke with Josephine who walked me through a couple of things,
specifically, running in SafeMode (to remove invalid "device" entries) and
deleting my swap file (?).

        Josephine told me that even when disabling the on-board video card (display
adapter) the system may try to enable it anyway (grrrrrr).  So, when we went
into SafeMode she had me remove this and that, including the regular and a
second, never-before-seen-in-regular-mode entry of the on-board video card.
I also had several other non-essential entries, all of which we removed.

        Next, and I had never heard of this and would like some comments on it,
Josephine had me delete my swap file, claiming that it sometimes gets
corrupted.

        The bottom line is that, to date, I've not had any lock-ups since my
working with Josephine at Compaq.

        Thanks, again, to those of you who offered your insights.  What a terrific
group.

        Brian

        P.S.  I really would like some of you "in the know" to comment on the
deletion in DOS of the swap file.  Ever heard of this being done before?
Can it get corrupted as she mentioned?  Does Windows rebuild it after it's
deleted?

        P.P.S.  Sorry about the original message not having a subject.  I noticed
that just as I hit the "Send" button. :-)


        < < Bob W. wrote... > >


        You probably have already mentioned your answer and as such this question
probably belongs on PCBUILD, but let us take a stab at the answer.   Odds
are real good that your old video card did not require an IRQ and you new
video card does require one.

        That does not mean that Windows did not assign an IRQ, only that you
probably did not assign one in your CMOS settings of the BIOS.   Open the
CMOS at Post, (when the PC first starts), enter your CMOS, usually by
pressing the DEL key.  Then look around inside for a setting that allows you
to either assign an IRQ to the video card or disable it.  Enable this
feature...   without this enabled with your video card, the lack of your
CMOS set to assign an IRQ and WIndows assigning one is causing a conflict
between the hardware and Windows.

This is only a guess based on your symptoms.

     Bob Wright
The NOSPIN Group

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                       Drew Dunn<[log in to unmask]>