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I have the same problem in two scenarios. First, I installed a wireless card into my dad's ancient Compaq, and when I go to start the PC after installing the hardware, nothing happens. It's running, but it's a black screen and there's no way to get into setup or anything. When I remove the hardware, voila, the problem disappears and windows starts normally. Thought it might be because the system is old (win98, 32 meg RAM, etc). However, when I went to install an ethernet card into my sister's newish HP (1.1ghz processor, 128 meg RAM), the same thing happened. I installed the software first, shut the computer down, then installed the hardware into a PCI slot with no problem... but once the hardware is inserted in the PCI slot on both computers, neither computer will go past a black screen. And then if you remove the hardware, suddenly it's fine and windows starts like nothing ever happened. I don't understand why this is happening, much less how to fix it. Any suggestions?
It's two separate cards causing the same problem with two separate computers... so the odds of it having something to do with the cards is slim. It's a wireless card AND an ethernet card.
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I have a old compaq at my house.Compaq En Deskpro.This computer has a 440bx motherboard my gateway has a 440bx motherboard.The gateway works fine with a wireless card but,I can't use the compaq with a wireless card.A last ditch effort you could try doing a format and fresh install with the wireless card already in computer instead of trying to install it after operating system is already installed.Sometimes Xp is freaky but,it sure is stable.
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Of course you couldn,t install Xp on your compaq it only has 32 megs of ram.You could still try the process with win 98 installation.I am only trying to help,maybe GX1man will address your problem.
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... let's all wait and see, shall we?
Resist the temptation to close your request for help with semantically-null questions like “Can anyone help me?”
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I guess I wasn't being clear about the two separate problems. First, the old compaq. I just installed windows 98 on it right before installing the wireless card software. It seems to be running 98 okay, and the software for the wireless card installed fine. However, once I insert the hardware into the PCI slot, windows 98 won't boot. It won't go past a black screen.
Second, the HP that already has XP as its OS. I installed the ethernet card software on the HP, shut down, inserted the ethernet card into the PCI slot and the same thing happened as what happened with the Compaq. It won't boot windows at all, won't go past a black screen.
In both situations, when I remove the hardware from the PCs, windows boots up like nothing ever happened.
It seems odd that two computers with very different capabilities and operating systems are having the same problem when completely different hardware is installed. Am I missing something?
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Have you also got a 56k modem in computers?Have you tried booting with the 56k modem removed and only the ethernet card or wireless card installed?
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<<maybe GX1man will address your problem.>>
For an unusual start i do NOT recommend an immediate reformat of this machine!!!!
What model Compaq is this (including processor), and what version of Windows 98 - first or second edition? What else is in the other PCI slots?
If it is a Deskpro EN or later there should be no problem. If it is a 2000, 4000 or 6000 we may need to make adjustments in the setup (F10 with or without the setup partition info.)
More info please. I do not think it is hopeless.
You can avoid many of these Windows problems with Linux. Linspire eases the transition for new users
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Okay, I took the 56k modems out of each machine and everything went very smooth with the HP. The compaq, on the other hand, is a different story. Windows finally booted up, but apparently some .dll files are missing or corrupt, so I'm going to try and reformat the machine (don't worry, there's nothing of importance on it -- it's a hand-me-down that my dad recently acquired from a friend of his) and go from there. Thanks for the help!
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Thanks for posting results.Good luck with the compaq.
You can lead a horse to water but,you can't make it google!!!
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So here I am at a loss again. I reformatted the compaq and started from scratch. I had finally gotten windows to start the other day, but there were lots of crazy errors with missing .dll files and such. So, after the reformat, I installed the wireless card software, shut down, and inserted the wireless card. Now, I'm back to square one with the black screen and no windows. When I remove the hardware, windows starts mostly fine, except it comes up with a .dll error. There is no other modem attached to the PC. I won't be surprised if it comes down to scrapping the old Compaq and buying a better/newer model, but if there is anything that can be done to avoid that, it would be nice. Any suggestions?
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What version of WIndows? What missing .dll files? Are you sure the CD isgood? Were there errors when it tried to load?
You can avoid many of these Windows problems with Linux. Linspire eases the transition for new users
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I agree with GX1Man.You probably have a bad istallation disk.I have learned a lot from his posts,I hope he can help you.
You can lead a horse to water but,you can't make it google!!!
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You flatter me, robertj!
You can avoid many of these Windows problems with Linux. Linspire eases the transition for new users
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