[Tripp Knightly]

This is not a "typical" one of these because I can coax XP to load.

System: Dell Dimension 8300, XP Home SP3, 1.5GB RAM, 2 HDDs, XP installed on only one of them.

I'm getting a blinking white cursor during boot up just after the Dell BIOS splash screen.

If I disconnect a USB card reader, the machine will boot normally to XP. This would suggest the card reader is to blame in some way. I had this same problem a couple years ago and somehow it "fixed itself" because the card reader (it's actually an IllumFX combined card reader and USB hub) worked like a charm since I discovered that it would work. Neither the USB hub nor the card reader functionality work. Other USB devices work - keyboard, printer, camera connectivity.

I've updated XP, searched for updates to USB drivers, card reader drivers etc. No dice. Tried changing USB port plugged into for good measure. Device manager points out that I also have a problem w/ my parallel 100MB zip drive as well (even after updating the IOMEGA). I've uninstalled that for good measure though suspect unrelated.

No new major software installs (other than what I might get from Windows Update).

Nothing has worked yet (hence this post!).

What else should I try?

How can I get more information about why the peripheral is failing or what's conflicting if anything - the machine detects it, sees it, but it doesn't work.

Thx

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These days its not worth diagnosing it. If you need the functionality of a card reader, throw that one away and a new one costs next to nothing anyway.

[Neil Jones]

These days its not worth diagnosing it. If you need the functionality of a card reader, throw that one away and a new one costs next to nothing anyway.

[Tripp Knightly]

I mostly agree with you, although given the device is a cool little thing it was worth it for me hear if there's any low-hanging fruit. Anyway, I appear to have fixed it. Unfortunately, like a couple years ago, I don't know how. It *might* have been 1 of the following.

1) I vacuumed out the inside of my system cabinet (last done about a year ago). Maybe there was a loose wire nudged by the vacuuming, but I'd changed the USB connection to the device several times and like I said USB was working w/ other devices.

2) Powering on/off the card reader (has a separate power supply). I'm embarassed that I don't think I tried that prior to posting, though had tried connecting / disconnecting. Fwiw, my recollect is a couple years ago power cycling it had no effect. But I realize this is always a basic thing to be tried.

3) The Dell support site suggested that my NVIDIA drivers were outdated, though upon installing the installer found many new components that were newer filewise and so I didn't overwrite plus not sure how a vid driver could cause USB problems w/ just a card reader.

4) Dumb luck.

Edited by Tripp Knightly, 21 September 2008 - 10:43 PM.