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If the earliest it freezes is the login screen as your first message said then it’s likely software. If it freezes during the POST as this message says then you’re right that it’s likely hardware. Note that there’s software that loads, often invisibly, between the end of the POST & the appearance of the login screen.

My favorite suspects, other than memory, are drives & video cards. Can you disconnect the other drives & boot reliably from a floppy? (Probably not into Windows, but at least to a command prompt.)

Start by simplifying the system-disconnect everything except the video & floppy. If that works OK then start adding things back one at a time until the problem re-appears. If this is an intermittent problem as you seem to suggest then this will be particularly hard to track down. Good luck.

If the earliest it freezes is the login screen as your first message said then it’s likely software. If it freezes during the POST as this message says then you’re right that it’s likely hardware. Note that there’s software that loads, often invisibly, between the end of the POST & the appearance of the login screen.

My favorite suspects, other than memory, are drives & video cards. Can you disconnect the other drives & boot reliably from a floppy? (Probably not into Windows, but at least to a command prompt.)

Start by simplifying the system-disconnect everything except the video & floppy. If that works OK then start adding things back one at a time until the problem re-appears. If this is an intermittent problem as you seem to suggest then this will be particularly hard to track down. Good luck.

What resources do you have? In my experience it’s more likely to be a software problem than hardware. If you already have spare hardware then by all means check for a hardware problem. (I’d do it by swapping suspect hardware for known good hardware-or at least for different hardware under the assumption that you’re unlikely to get several bad components in a row. But note that that’s an assumption, not a guarantee.)

If you don’t have spare hardware then I’d check for software problems before buying anything. Maybe down to the point of reformat/reinstall. Only if that didn’t work (make sure you have good drivers for the hardware) would I spend money on diagnosing possible hardware faults.

What resources do you have? In my experience it’s more likely to be a software problem than hardware. If you already have spare hardware then by all means check for a hardware problem. (I’d do it by swapping suspect hardware for known good hardware-or at least for different hardware under the assumption that you’re unlikely to get several bad components in a row. But note that that’s an assumption, not a guarantee.)

If you don’t have spare hardware then I’d check for software problems before buying anything. Maybe down to the point of reformat/reinstall. Only if that didn’t work (make sure you have good drivers for the hardware) would I spend money on diagnosing possible hardware faults.

Is it necessary to use TCP/IP on the shop network? I routinely set up my networks with File & Printer Sharing bound to IPX/SPX & use TCP/IP only for Internet access. That works well as long as all networked applications support IPX/SPX (I ran into one that didn’t a few months back & I’m still finishing up the loose ends on that re-configuration.)

Is it necessary to use TCP/IP on the shop network? I routinely set up my networks with File & Printer Sharing bound to IPX/SPX & use TCP/IP only for Internet access. That works well as long as all networked applications support IPX/SPX (I ran into one that didn’t a few months back & I’m still finishing up the loose ends on that re-configuration.)

Maybe I’ll have to give it another try. I pretty much quit using it a number of years ago. (I use KEdit as my text editor-and Word or WordPerfect for word processing documents. KEdit is neither free nor easy to learn, but since I already have it & know it-at least the functions I make use of in it-that’s what I use.)

Maybe I’ll have to give it another try. I pretty much quit using it a number of years ago. (I use KEdit as my text editor-and Word or WordPerfect for word processing documents. KEdit is neither free nor easy to learn, but since I already have it & know it-at least the functions I make use of in it-that’s what I use.)

Be aware, however, that WordPad documents are not text documents, even if you’ve set WordPad as the default application for text documents. If it’s important that these remain text documents (for, say, compatibility) then you should either refrain from modifying them in WordPad or be quite careful when you save the modifications.

Be aware, however, that WordPad documents are not text documents, even if you’ve set WordPad as the default application for text documents. If it’s important that these remain text documents (for, say, compatibility) then you should either refrain from modifying them in WordPad or be quite careful when you save the modifications.

Some time back, shortly after I first moved to XP, I saw this behavior. Only one account, no password, but stopped on the Welcome screen anyway. After some experimenting I discovered the culprit-that time, anyway.

It happened, repeatedly, after I downloaded .Net Frameworks (1.1, I think-but it might have been 1.0). This update created a ‘hidden’ account that didn’t appear on the Welcome screen. It did show up in User accounts though, which is how I tracked it down.

I’d been uncomfortable about the ‘no password’ thing anyway but at the time I was trying to network the XP machines with Win98 ones & wanted as simple a configuration as possible to start with. Figured that once the networking was working I could secure it later. (It never did work to my satisfaction-I just kept tinkering with it until I got rid of the last of the Win98 machines.) So I took that as a sign & added passwords. Later, at the customer’s insistence, I added auto-login. (I wonder if the customer remembers what passwords I set up for them? I sure as heck don’t.)

Some time back, shortly after I first moved to XP, I saw this behavior. Only one account, no password, but stopped on the Welcome screen anyway. After some experimenting I discovered the culprit-that time, anyway.

It happened, repeatedly, after I downloaded .Net Frameworks (1.1, I think-but it might have been 1.0). This update created a ‘hidden’ account that didn’t appear on the Welcome screen. It did show up in User accounts though, which is how I tracked it down.

I’d been uncomfortable about the ‘no password’ thing anyway but at the time I was trying to network the XP machines with Win98 ones & wanted as simple a configuration as possible to start with. Figured that once the networking was working I could secure it later. (It never did work to my satisfaction-I just kept tinkering with it until I got rid of the last of the Win98 machines.) So I took that as a sign & added passwords. Later, at the customer’s insistence, I added auto-login. (I wonder if the customer remembers what passwords I set up for them? I sure as heck don’t.)

Good. I’ll need to look into that as, if it does what it sounds like it should do, it will answer one of my significant concerns about these devices. Now if I could only find one that will work with all-or nearly all-the music stores.

Whoa-just as I hit return for the above line I got some kind of message on my screen & (after hitting enter) it flipped back to the thread. Hope this didn’t post twice.

Anyway, to Bill, I like your analogy. A significant part of my work lately has been cleaning out malware downloaded by naive users. Yes, I’ve tried to impress on my daughter how dangerous things can be-but I seem to be continually caught between my desire to protect her & her conviction that since she hasn’t suffered harm (because I’ve been protecting her) then the danger doesn’t exist. Do I really need to let her get hurt to teach her a lesson? That seems so vindictive-but how else to get her to listen to me?

So far I’ve simply told her that if she wants music she can buy the CD & rip it-but it’s a expensive solution to buy an entire album when she only wants one or two songs.

There was an issue with formatting drives > approx. 30GB as FAT32 under XP. I don’t remember the details though-except that to get larger drives formatted as FAT32 you had to boot from a Win98 floppy & format from that. XP would use the larger drives, but not format them.

Since I don’t remember the details (like what happened when you tried formatting a larger drive) I don’t know whether or not this relates to your problem-but it might be worth a search if you did format the drive as FAT32.

There was an issue with formatting drives > approx. 30GB as FAT32 under XP. I don’t remember the details though-except that to get larger drives formatted as FAT32 you had to boot from a Win98 floppy & format from that. XP would use the larger drives, but not format them.

Since I don’t remember the details (like what happened when you tried formatting a larger drive) I don’t know whether or not this relates to your problem-but it might be worth a search if you did format the drive as FAT32.