[Sobi]

Hello to all readers, (sry for lengthy post)

I run an internet cafe with 30 comps. Where recently my main comp at the counter started having problems.
It won't boot... when I try to start it, it'll hang at the windows logo with the progress bar stopped in one place. I formatted it to do a clean install and it's still hanging.
At one point, I thought it could be because I haven't updated the BIOS, but it's still not working after the update. After a few days of research, I found out that the cause of this problem could be due to my drivers not being compatible(?) or improper(?). I'm down to network(ethernet controller), audio and graphic but I can't pin down exactly which one. Can anyone help please? is there a program or something out there that can tell me exactly which driver it is?

My mobo is Asus A8N5X, AMD Athlon 64 Processor 3700+, 2.2GHz with 1GB of RAM.
OS: Windows XP Pro

P.S. I don't know if this has anything to do with the hangs, but I have been installing various programs(limewire, ad-aware, alzip, various players) without a restart. Should I be restarting after every install?

Please help
Many thanks in advance!

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Hi Sobi and welcome to geeks to go.

I will try and get this started and help you out. I do not have all the answers, but have some.

It is always good practice to shutdown and reboot after installing software. each one adds its dll files and such. If there is incompatibility, then you have issues. I am not saying this is your problem now. I always like to add 1 program at a time and then test the unit. That way if there is a failure, you know the culprit program.

You could most likely have a driver problem. Can you get in to safe mode? Safemode loads all basic drivers. Safe mode will look scary and weird, but we want to see if the comp starts in safe mode. from there we can start identifying things.

[123Runner]

Hi Sobi and welcome to geeks to go.

I will try and get this started and help you out. I do not have all the answers, but have some.

It is always good practice to shutdown and reboot after installing software. each one adds its dll files and such. If there is incompatibility, then you have issues. I am not saying this is your problem now. I always like to add 1 program at a time and then test the unit. That way if there is a failure, you know the culprit program.

You could most likely have a driver problem. Can you get in to safe mode? Safemode loads all basic drivers. Safe mode will look scary and weird, but we want to see if the comp starts in safe mode. from there we can start identifying things.

[Sobi]

You could most likely have a driver problem. Can you get in to safe mode? Safemode loads all basic drivers. Safe mode will look scary and weird, but we want to see if the comp starts in safe mode. from there we can start identifying things.

Hi 123Runner, thx for your interest in helping me!

To your safe mode question, yes I can get into safe mode. I've actually tried uninstalling the network, audio and video drivers one by one to find out which one's the problem. But I didn't have any luck.
Until, I reformatted the computer and installed the drivers one by one. Now, I'm not 100% sure but I think it may be the network driver...
But the funny thing is that... I updated the BIOS and installed the drivers one by one to find out that they ARE in fact working okay.... until I installed the necessary programs and restarted, that's where it started to hang once again.

What should I do once I get into the safe mode?

Please let me know if you have any other questions, I'll try to answer them to the best of my knowledge.

[123Runner]

This could be tedious for you. If you are sure that it is 1 of the programs, then you will have to uninstall them till you find the culprit. You can do that thru safe mode and then the add/remove in control panel. I would suggest that you remove 1 at a time and test it.
If you have removed a few and then find the culprit, then you can start a reinstall. I would set a restore point after each program install.

[Sobi]

should I do both the uninstall and reinstall in safe mode? or just the uninstall in the safe mode and the reinstall in normal mode? because I can actually get into the normal mode once in a while...

[123Runner]

The only reason I mentioned safe mode for uninstall is because I thought you could only get into safe mode. You can uninstall and reinstall from normal mode if you can get there.
The only thing is to only reinstall 1 program at a time and be sure the comp is ok. Then go to the next 1 till the bad program is found.

Have you been able to do the MS updates and SP2?

[Sobi]

ok, I'll try that.

Yeah, I have been able to get the updates.