OK, so on another computer I use (Win XP), I just ran Windows automatic update, and now my internet connection is dead. Immediate failure in Outlook Express, delayed failure in Firefox and I.E. (i.e. it waits for ~30 seconds, then shows the unable to connect-type message).
I did a full power down and reboot - no luck.
Any suggestions as to likely culprits/fixes?
Reboot to Last Known Good Configuration, and then uninstall the update. If that doesn’t work, you’ll need to do a Repair installation from your installation CD.
I just had an update last week completely Fubar one of my employees XP installations. Since it was under Volume Licensing pre-loaded by the manufacturer, I had to get a replacement CD overnighted. What a pain…
Try this before doing a repair install: http://majorgeeks.com/WinSock_XP_Fix_d4372.html This has cured a lot of networking woes caused by spyware/corrupted settings. I assume you have a USB thumb drive?
If you’ve already rebooted more than once, Last Known Good probably won’t work (since the 2nd reboot will make the “Last Known Good” become the 1st reboot after the update).
Do you have the NIC drivers on hand? Remove the NIC from device manager, delete the driver files from the HD, and try to re-add the NIC/install the driver.
What do you see when you do ipconfig? What’s the network connection/setup?
Edit to add: How many updates got installed in this batch? If you go to Add/Remove Programs and check the “Show Updates” box you’ll see all the Windows Updates and they should be listed by date installed. You might be able to manaully uninstall the last update (or batch, one at a time) and solve the problem.
OK, this thing quickly went from bad to MUUUUCCHHH worse.
I started with the majorgeeks utility that was recommended. It has a registry backup option, which I tried to use, but it gave me a bunch of errors (though it did write out some files to the directory I specfied - I’m not sure if they’re any good).
Next, I had that utility do it’s thing. It wanted to reboot at the end, but the reboot process was stalled by a window showing some kind of error message. Plus there’s some kind of long unfamiliar beep from the computer at that time. Ominous…
I manually rebooted. The PC booted up to desktop, but the 'net connection was still down. I think once during this time period I had a random hard freeze as I was going into control panel. But I putter around with a few things (testing some ping commands) and stuff generally seems ok, other than the broken 'net connection.
Anyways, I went in and looked for what the update had done. It appears the main update was security update 920342. I went to remove it, and it told me that it might make certain programs inoperable. The listbox listed what appeared to be every single program installed on the computer. I double checked on the MS support page, and it looks like 920342 is designed to address some networking type issue with Vista, and that it might break backwards compatibility (i.e. so it might be the cause of my networking problems, but shouldn’t really affect non-networking programs). So I go ahead and remove it.
Then, everything goes haywire. From that point on, the computer doesn’t like to boot correctly. Sometimes, at power up, it gives me 5 short beeps and doesn’t work. Sometimes it gives me 1 beep, and shows the text mode bootup stuff (drivers and such), but I never see the screen after it goes to graphics mode (but I DO still hear the Windows bootup friendly tone implying that the system itself has made it into Windows desktop even if I don’t see it). One time, it makes it to the first part of graphics mode (showing the windows logo and the loading bar), but does a hard freeze there. Keyboard response seems dead.
I try with both VGA and PCI out of my system - same results.
BTW, my network card was apparently on on-board NVidia thing. My video is a cheapie stand alone card.
I will proceed with trying to get a safe mode boot (but for that, I need keyboard control, which it appears I don’t have now), then perhaps trying to swap out the vid card.
I really don’t want to do a full Windows re-install, as that will likely require software reinstall and reconfic too, at the cost of a day or so. Plus, my HD is striped RAID, so swapping HDs around for backup and testing is hard. I think I am pretty well backed up (to CD/DVD) on the machine in question, but there are probably some things I would lose with a full wipe.
Any suggestions or expressions of sympathy are more than welcome…
Ow. Wow.
Condolences.
Wipe and reinstall seems your only option now…
Actually, you may have a hardware problem that’s unrelated and only coincidental to the Windows Update issue at this point. It almost sounds like you need a new motherboard, since the problem is happening before you even boot into Windows.
Yeah, that’s what I’m a’feared of.
I just had another boot sequence as follows:
Boot - see Asus initial screen (F2 to go to setup). I leave it alone. Asus screen stays up, but I can hear the HD going through normal bootup sounds. After about 30 seconds, I hear the normal windows startup chime. So it appears to have booted correctly into Windows, but the vid card remained stuck at that first screen. Very odd…
Next stop is to try a different vid card.
If you’re getting BIOS/POST errors, the problem is either seperate from or happening alongside the Windows problem.
That’s what you get for pouring one for your homies into your open computer case. X(
never install hardware driver updates from windowsupdates, they’re always old and hoary.
OK, here’s the update…
I pulled an old Radeon 7xxx PCI card from a different machine, and with that in, the PC boots and runs consistently.
I was able to resolve the internet connection thing - I had to manually enter my machine’s IP address, gateway, and DNS. The auto-detect used to work (and still does work for another Win XP machine connected to the same hub), and I hadn’t been playing with anything that should have affected that recently, but anyways, that seems to resolve that issue, and I was able to fully catch up on Windows Update.
Back to the vid card. The Radeon 7xxx is functional, but it’s old enough that even dragging a window around on the desktop (at 1600 x 1200 x 32) is slow and laggy. The machine in question doesn’t really need 3D graphics, but it does need a machine that can run a 1600 x 1200 x 32 desktop respectably.
My old card had been a Radeon X300 , in a PCI-E slot. This slow (but functional) replacement, was a Radeon 7xxx in a plain old PCI slot.
So I bought a new Radeon X300 SE (PCI-E), and…
Same problems - freezes during post, and/or multiple beeps at reboot with the post screen not even appearing.
So, it appears that the PCI-E slot itself is dead, and it was a coincidence that it failed at the same time I did the Windows Update. This is not a machine I’ve used much for the last few weeks (since I turned the fan down, see below). I assume this is not likely fixable short of a new mobo, which I don’t want to deal with, correct?
The machine (and original vid card) are about 1.5 years old, BTW. The one possible culprit I can think of is that a couple of months ago, I turned down the case fan speed from medium (or perhaps it was fast) to slow, to make the fan quieter. There were no stability problems in the time thereafter, so I assumed that was ok. But perhaps the vid card (which did not have it’s own fan - only a heatsink), got too hot and burned out the slot or something?
Does the above sound about right to you hardware gurus out there?
Assuming the slot is dead, am I gonna be able to get decent desktop performance with a plain old PCI card? (assuming I buy a better one than the Radeon 7xxx I’m using now…)
The mobo also has 2 different kinds of really short slots - I’m not sure what they are or if they can be used for a decent video card.
The two short slots are PCIe X1 (single lane) slots. While it’s theoretically you could stick a X16 PCIe card in it and get it to work, I doubt they built that capability into the BIOS. So you either get to live with the PCI card, or replace the motherboard.
Thanks Case - have you ever heard of single slots on mobos burning out like that, while the rest of the mobo still works?
Yes, unfortunately. It may be any of a number of things, but it it was heat related, then the power regulators for that part of the motherboard may be cooked.
Grrr…
So I bought a new Radeon 9250 PCI, put it in, booted (fine), but needed to install updated drivers. I did so, powered down, buttoned up my machine (all was good now, right?), and…
No video, no sound, at all (not even during post, not even the system beep that normally occurs during startup).
So I unbuttoned my machine and tried various configurations, using both known working PCI cards (my old, too slow one, and the new one).
Nothing.
So perhaps the whole mobo just gave up the goose entirely. Perhaps I jarred something important loose. I don’t know - I’m frustrated and tired for the night, with about 6 hours into this problem so far (including 2 round trips to Circuit City…)
Well, the other main computer I use picked up the auto-update overnight, and had a dead internet connection thereafter. Fortunately I now know how to fix THAT.
On to the dead vid card/mobo/something…
Bub, it sounds like you’ve got a corrupted set of drivers, not a dead slot. You replaced card with identical card, problem continues. Windows is using the same drivers.
You replace card with different card. Windows uses default/embedded drivers, everything works.
You replace with another new card. Everything works, until you install drivers, at which point everything borks.
It sounds like some driver somewhere that is specific to ATI drivers, but not necessarily to Windows ATI drivers, is screwed up.
H.
No, I think it’s the mobo.
I just switched some cards around again. First time, it booted all the way into Windows, then the screen hard froze about 15 seconds after it got into Windows. Reboot - I get no video at all, even during post - not so much as a flicker.
Switch cards - no video again.
I’d buy a ‘bad driver’ explanation if the problem consistently occurred during Windows load-up time or thereafter. But most of the time, I don’t even see the thing post. This is with 4 different cards (2 PCI, 2 PCI-E), and in multiple slots on the mobo (only 1 PCI-E slot, but at least 2 PCI slots tried as well).
The only commonality is the mobo.
Yeah, there are enough instances where the problem happens before Windows loads to make it clear it’s not a driver issue.