[rxkevco]

Hi all, ,
Heres a strange one for ya all ! !

Have an AMILO A1650 laptop with xp pro on it and its a few years old now but is still rock solid and ver fast, , never let me down till this morning.

When i turned it on this morning, everything started as per usual and windows booted to the desktop fine but, , whenever i click on ANYTHING on the start bar at the bottom of the screen i get an error beep and everything appears frozen. I cant even click on the start button to access any features.

Whats weird though is, , everything above the start bar is fine, , all my desktop icone work fine and open up fine, , ie email , explorer and all my other desktop icons are fine, , but anything on the bottom bar appears to be frozen and if you click the mouse anywhere on this bar you get an error beep and nothing happen, ie nothing opens up.

The main problem i suppose is not being able to access anything from the start button, , programs, , documents, pics, music, control panel etc !

I have a usb wireless mouse thats the default mouse whenever its plugged in, , but even when i took out the usb receiver to use the scratch pad mouse i get the same problem so its neither the wireless mouse or the scratch pad mouse that are at fault, cos as i have already said, , they both work fine and as they should on anything else on the desktop apart from the bottom start bar.

I have rebooted 4 times and its still the same , , , ,any ideas ? ? ?
I have never heard of this happen to anyone before, , and its certainly never happened to me on any of my laptops or desktop pcs ? ? ? ?

I still have my desktop to use, and of course everything on my laptop, apart from anything that hasnt got a desktop icon that is, , i miss my lappy already ! !

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Restart your machine and continually tap the F8 key to access the Safe Mode options screen. Choose to boot up to Safe Mode and do a System restore to an earlier date. Hopefully, the error you're seeing doesn't also show up in Safe mode.

[makai]

Restart your machine and continually tap the F8 key to access the Safe Mode options screen. Choose to boot up to Safe Mode and do a System restore to an earlier date. Hopefully, the error you're seeing doesn't also show up in Safe mode.

[rxkevco]

I might be a bit stuffed there as well, , , i tried the safe mode lark this morning to be able to do a restore but F8 doesnt work, , its making the same error noise as the taskbar does when you continually hit F8.
Have tried all the F keys and not one of them is getting me into safe mode.
Am in the middle of a google search to see if i can find out how to get into safe mode on this laptop.

Stay with me if you have any alternative ideas, , i am sure there is another more complex way to get into safe mode if the F keys dont do the trick but i can for the life of me remember how to do it.

Thanks for your support, , kev

[rxkevco]

Right, ,
This is getting weirder by the minute. !

I managed to get into safe mode eventually and everything works properly, , no error beeps when clicking on items on the task/start bar.
Did a system restore which went well and rebooted back into normal windows.
Was able to open up everything without any problems, , back to normal i thought.

Just been out to collect my daughter from school and when i got back, , guess what, , the problem is back again, , even after the restore. Must have lasted about 15 minutes at the most before reverting back to not being able to access anything on the start bar. Once again, everything else on the desktop works well, i still have iinternet and email, sound , wireless connection, usb wireless mouse works as does the scratch pad mouse , , just the start bar items frozen.
The only thing i have noticed though, , is a ballon message telling me that i " have unused icons on the desktop, do i want to clean up the desktop ", , incidently, this ballon message was here this morning as well, , never seen it before this morning. Oh, , i didnt click on the ballon as instructed, as i want to keep the desktop icons that i have.
Any ideas ? ? ?

Edited by rxkevco, 10 December 2008 - 09:37 AM.

[makai]

Does this problem happen in safe mode also. I have to assume it doesn't, or maybe it does, but the "good" condition only lasted long enough so you could access the Start menu to launch System restore.

If you can boot to safe mode again and let the computer run for a while to see if the problem will or will not rear it's ugly head, then perhaps we can tell if this might just be a driver problem. In safe mode, windows will only load a few specific drivers and some of that will be generic drivers. If it's really a driver problem, and the problem doesn't show up in safe mode, then we can almost assume one of your drivers is corrupt.

Edited by makai, 12 December 2008 - 03:54 PM.

[rxkevco]

Sorry for not getting back for a few days, , i havent had the laptop on for a little whiles as this problems still appeared to be happening occassionally after the reboot into safe mode earlier in the week.
I have just booted it up and it appears to be working as normal with none of the previous issues.
I have rebooted it several times this evening, and on each occassion it seems to be fine now.
The only thing i did do that might have some bearing on this problem was, , earlier, i said that there was a ballon asking me if i wanted to clean up the desktop of unused icons, , to which my answer was no, ,as i wanted them left there. However, i did on one occassion let it remove all the unused items, , then i reinstalled them one at a time from the start menu and all seems well from then on ! ! !

I have no idea what caused this in the first place but its all well now ? ?

Just one of those little glitches with no answer i suppose

Edited by rxkevco, 12 December 2008 - 04:14 PM.

[makai]

Well I'm glad it's working! Truthfully, I have no idea what could cause this, so I'm afraid I wouldn't have been much help to you.

About "unused Icons"... if you want to turn off the feature that triggers the message, click on a blank area of the Desktop and choose Properties from the menu. The Display Properties window will launch. Go to the Desktop tab and click on Customize Desktop. In the Desktop Items window, uncheck Run Desktop Cleanup Wizard every 60 days.

makai

[rxkevco]

Dont worry, , i have already disabled it

As i say, i dont know if its possible that ignoring the unused icon ballon that was very persistant had anything to do with it cos once i actually clicked on the ballon to let it get on with it, the problem hasnt been back since ! !
It could well be that the system froze because of me ignoring the request each time, , i dont know.
I have lost touch with xp a lot since i have vista x64 on my main machine and dont use the laptop that ofton anymore.
It was a problem that i have never come across before, , even on here , , and hopefully no one will have in the future, , including me ! (fingers crossed eh ).
Thanks for looking in anyway, , much appreciated thankyou.

[makai]

You're welcome! Take care!

[rxkevco]

I cant believe this , , the blody problem is back again !

To recap , , every time i click on anything on the start bar at the bottom of the screen, i get an instant error beep and cant open anything. None of the icon on the bottom left respond, , nor does the start icon itself, , meaning i cant open up the start menu.

In safe mode , , all is fine and the error goes away.

Every time i boot up the laptop its 50/50 wether or not this problem is there from the start, , or if it develops 15 minutes later. Over the last week or so i have had days where the problem isnt evident at all, , other days where ts there from the start.
When able to, , i do a system restore to various previous dates and this appears (most of the time) to work , , but even if it works, ,its once again 50/50 wether 15 minutes later i am back to square one again.

Its obviously a driver problem , ,but how to permantly resolve it is a complete mystery.

I only use the laptop for internet searches and email, , , i dont do anything else with it, , i dont play music or watch dvds (most of the time ) , , ,so its probably very unlikely that its a software conflict.

I realy am stuffed over this one , ,i dont even know where to begin with solving this unusual problem, but its getting me down something rotton.

I have ordered a brand new vista , , AMILO Xi 3650 ,top spec , , 1tb drive ,18.4" screen, ,core 2 p8400 cpu ,4gb rm and 9600gt grapics with blue ray player , so i wont have to endure this problem for much longer, but i am giving this present amilo laptop to my mum so i dont want her to have the same problem.
I will be reformatting it and reinstalling xp before i give it to her which will more than likely see the end of the issue , , but, , , the geek in me wants to know why this is happening and how to resove it for good. You never know, , as unusual as it is , , this problem may affect someone else at some point and it would be nice to help them resolve it.

ANY , , ANY , ,further advice , fixes or any ideas will be greatly appreciated.
At this point, i am willing to try anything and get this solved before my new laptop arrives next week. It would be a shame to reformatt this laptop as planned, without solving the problem first.

Many thanks, , kev

[123Runner]

Look in device manager for any ? or !
Also look in event viewer for anything odd.

[rxkevco]

Hi, thanks for the reply but, , could you be a bit clearer please, ?

What sort of thing should i be looking for and how do i access event manager ?

[123Runner]

Sorry, I was in a hurry for something.

To access device manager: go to start/ run and type in devmgmt.msc and click ok.
Look for any ? or ! that indicate issues with drivers.

To access event viewer: go to start/ control panel/ administrative tools/ event viewer.
On the left side, expand application. Look for any errors that might indicate a issue.
Also expand system and see if there is anything in there.

[rxkevco]

Well everything seems to be fine in device manager. Doesnt appear to be any devices not working !

The event viewer has a few errors on the list but you cant expand them or click on them to get more information. I dont even know what the errors are referring to

[rxkevco]

Please, ,anyone, , this is getting on my nerves.
I am back to the point of not even being able to access safe mode again now so i cant even do a system restore either.