[zagreus]

I installed a wireless card into an older aptiva. As soon as I rebooted, I got nothing but a blinking cursor in the top left corner. So I rebooted in Safe mode several times, running registry checker, cleaning off old programs, and now when I reboot holding down the f2 key, it appears to be reloading in the normal fashion, not Safe mode. Accept it won't recognize the various drives, and the colors and dsiplay are all wacky. It leads me to believe it is still safe mode , it just doesn't say it in the corners. It also says there's a problem with the user.exe file when I run checker. HOw do I fix this computer?

[Advertisements]

First I would take out the wireless card and see if things revert to normal. Many of these older machines don't have enough interrupt request lines to go around, so when you put a new device in something else gets left off. You can choose to disable something, one of the seldom used com ports is a good idea, and it might pick everything up. You do that in System, Device manager. What you seem to be missing is the display adapter drivers. The order in which the cards are put on the motherboard can be important, you want the display adapter first, the network adapters next, the sound, then anything else. That way all the basic functions are picked up.

Any devices that perform the same basic function, such as two different kinds of network cards, should be placed next to each other. Also, many of the older machines don't support plug and play, they may use jumpers to set the IRQs. Very messy and there's a learning curve involved.

What model of Aptiva is it?

[Tyger]

First I would take out the wireless card and see if things revert to normal. Many of these older machines don't have enough interrupt request lines to go around, so when you put a new device in something else gets left off. You can choose to disable something, one of the seldom used com ports is a good idea, and it might pick everything up. You do that in System, Device manager. What you seem to be missing is the display adapter drivers. The order in which the cards are put on the motherboard can be important, you want the display adapter first, the network adapters next, the sound, then anything else. That way all the basic functions are picked up.

Any devices that perform the same basic function, such as two different kinds of network cards, should be placed next to each other. Also, many of the older machines don't support plug and play, they may use jumpers to set the IRQs. Very messy and there's a learning curve involved.

What model of Aptiva is it?

[zagreus]

It's an e-series 585. I looked at the IRQ settings in BIOS, but it is beyond my experience. I've seen other referneces to the the display adaptor drivers. Where can I get access to check these display adaptor drivers? Are they imbedded in windows, or part of the BIOS system? I haven't looked at the motherborad, to be honest I'm not sure I could identify the various cards. But I do know how to disable the various ports through BIOS, I'll try that as well. Thanks for the expertise and please continue to advise.