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Ever since we received it back in August an odd thing occurs every few days. We will be working along and all of a sudden the bottom bar and the icons on the desktop dissappear. The only thing left is the desktop image.
The programs that are running at the time are not affected. You can continue using them however in order to reboot we have to open the task manager through ctrl-alt-delete and restart the computer. Everything returns to normal after that.
I searched Google for the problem and there are various posts on different forums but no answers.
Has anyone else had the same problem? Does anyone know how to fix it?
It seems to me like a RAM problem. You say it's running all the time (in a corosive environment no less) so maybe the RAM is getting too hot and causing errors. If I remember correctly, everything on the desktop is loaded into RAM for quick access.
Hope that helps a little.
I'll try those solutions the next time it happens.
We have 1 GB of ram and it's always possible that it's an overheating problem. Our daily air temps are around 85ºF and we do not use A/C.
It's a brand new box and system with a large fan and lots of air holes so who knows. We understand that the video cards give off a lot of heat these days so that may also be part of the problem if the ram cards are near it or the processor.
The funny thing is that it usually happens during normal browsing sessions which you wouldn't think would be too demanding on the system.
It was 5 or 6 days between incidents and the only two programs open at the time were IE & OE.
I had to use alt+ctrl+delete to restart the computer with Windows Task Manager.
Anybody else got any ideas.
1. Move the video card to a different slot (if it's possible)with nothing around it.
2. Add a cooling fan / heat sink to your card
3. Remove the side cover from your computer case and set up a small desktop fan to blow right at the motherboard.
I had a computer run really hot and cause a lot of errors because of the demand on it once. I took off a side of the case and ran a fan on it and it was fine from then on. It's at least something you can try to eliminate temperature as a factor.
Keep us posted.
PageOne: I can pretty well eliminate the w32.blast virus as we have everything totally up to date including SP2 and Norton 2004 on automatic. I also run a complete virus scan once a week and everything comes up clean.
I also have researched the issue on Google but was unable to find anything concrete. I also searched MS but couldn't find anything. I know I'm not alone because of the number of posts on different forums so I kinda don't think it's the video card which is an NVidia GeForce FX 5200 with 256 MB.
I am more and more coming to the conclusion that it's a conflict in SP2 that only manifests itself under a certain set of conditions. If the video card was shutting down then it would affect the other programs which it does not. It could also be something to do with the Intel processor which has HT.
Anyway, my knowledge of this stuff is pretty basic. I know how to turn it on and off and beyond that I don't touch it.
It just happened again and I followed your instructions.
When I opened the Task Manager "explorer.exe" was not there. Following your instructions I entered "explorer" into New Tasks and, what do you know, my desktop re-appeared.
The question now remains as to what is causing explorer.exe to disappear.
At the time of this latest inceident I had just right clicked the windows explorer icon on my desktop and clicked open. As I was searching for what I wanted to do the desktop disapppeared. In other cases I was just browsing with IE 6.
Look into the event log (Control Panel ¦ Administrative Tools ¦ Event Log). Maybe the explorer crash is logged as a DrWatson event that could give us more detail. Furthermore, right clicking an icon triggers a lot of things like looking up the programs that are associated with the file represented by the icon. Try to reproduce the problem by right clicking other icons.
Fortunately I had posted the event here a few minutes after it happened so I knew what time it was.
Under SYSTEM it shows an event under USER: NT Authority/System that says:
The IMAPI CD-Burning COM Service service was successfully sent a start control. Time: 3.25.50
The IMAPI CD-Burning COM Service service entered the running state. Time 3.25.50
The IMAPI CD-Burning COM Service service entered the stopped state. Time 3.25.56
We were not using any CD-Burning equipment. There were no other events logged around the time this happened.
Any guesses?
uninstall SP2 you should find that fixes the problem for good.
While that may solve this minor problem (and make the MS haters feel better) it's really not a viable option these days, is it?
We rang ms to check and they said it was because the copy of XP was 'possibly' not genuine as they had the serial number already on file - many times over!
What had happened I believe is her comp had crashed and she could not find the genuine CD, so borrowed one from a friend.
Uninstalling SP2 in safe mode solved the problem, the only other choice was to either find the genuine CD that came with the comp. or buy a brand new original CD and reinstall.
While that may solve this minor problem (and make the MS haters feel better) it's really not a viable option these days, is it?That's right, SP2 has so many crucial fixes for security related problems.
Re CDROM burning: It seems that this is a real windows service we're talking about. You can disable any service using Control Panel ¦ Administrative Tools ¦ Services. Find that particular service and right click it. Select Properties and set the start type to Disabled. Click OK.
Hanu:
What I will do is wait to the next occurrence and check and see if the same activity is logged. If so I will follow your instructions. This will not prevent me from using my CD burner will it? Sorry to sound uninformed.
This will not prevent me from using my CD burner will it?It might. But if the crash doesn't occur while the service is disabled, we know that the service causes the trouble. In that case I would simply install a different CD burning software. OTOH, if the crash goes away with the service disabled but the burning software still works, you can leave the service disabled. God knows what it's for ...
Are you running any server type software or memory intensive applications? If windows isnt drawing the icons it could be low on resources (handles, memory, etc).
The problems I experienced were like those where the card is overheating. Application windows would be stuck, desktop would not function.
ANyway, that's all I got. Even if it isn't the drivers, it's good to have the latest and definitely eliminate it as a problem.
-=casey=-
