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win95 hourglass intermittant blinki

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Name: Darkastronomer
Date: August 28, 2002 at 12:38:53 Pacific
Comment:

I have
Windows95 4.00.950C
IE 5.5.00.3314.2101
Pentium Pro 64MB RAM

Lately, (sometimes) when I access windows explorer or a win menu, my cursor starts blinking: 3 sec hourglass, 3 sec arrow...repeats.

I tried ctrl alt del, and nothing weird is running. The HD access light is not blinking during this flashing hourglass thing.

I tried ctrl alt del, selected 'explorer' hit 'end task' and then 'cancel'.. when the endtask box comes up I hit cancel. SOMEtimes this stops the flashing cursor, but not all times, and it usually happens again when I use windows explorer.

I have already tried setting hardware acceleration down one notch. Didn't work. Flashing hourglass especially happens if I try to use win explorer or menu right after I get the desktop. It also happens sometimes when using other programs, usually when I use the menu.
It seems to not screw up anything, but it is annoying me and I really worry 'what is going on with that flashing hourglass'!
Help, slowly driven by about this...

Thanks in advance wise geek gurus,
Darkastronomer




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Response Number 1
Name: sidney
Date: August 28, 2002 at 12:53:59 Pacific
Reply:

have you tried defragmenting the drive, maybe the computer is seeking fragmented data, switches to standard pointer while seeking, and hourglass when loading data


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Response Number 2
Name: Ramza
Date: August 28, 2002 at 13:07:12 Pacific
Reply:

Yep, I agree with Sidney, defrag! also you may want to go ahead and uninstall any software you dont use often before defraging.. I'm not sure, but wasn't the pentium pro chip the one with the fpu bug? if so, upgrading to win98 may help some of your problems.


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Response Number 3
Name: Darkastronomer
Date: August 28, 2002 at 13:11:59 Pacific
Reply:

I recently defragged, thanks. It was doing the flashing before...and still did it after defrag.

I also just ran a couple of different virus checks, adware and spyware checks...comp is clean.
Other than this flashing thing (which only happens sometimes) the machine works pretty well even with several big programs open.

Could this be a windows explorer problem?
Right not it is not doing it...but then I have not opened windows explorer since reboot...



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Response Number 4
Name: Darkastronomer
Date: August 28, 2002 at 13:29:55 Pacific
Reply:

OK..honestly, I *did* uninstall some old progs yesterday, and installed some new ones...forgot about that DUH
I will defrag again and see what happens...thanks
:-)


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Response Number 5
Name: Ramza
Date: August 28, 2002 at 13:33:17 Pacific
Reply:

Again, you have got me stumped. If you still have your windoze 95 cd, you might try extracting the explorer.exe file from the cd and replacing the one in your windows directory with the one from the cd, but i dont think that is your problem, to be honest. If windows' gui is loaded, explorer is running, so I dont think explorer is the problem. I have seen bad or dying ram cause similar problems.. you may want to swap your ram around a bit. Keep me posted on your progress.

Tom


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Response Number 6
Name: Darkastronomer
Date: August 28, 2002 at 17:10:42 Pacific
Reply:

Thanks everyone for helping :-)

well I defragged again...
got online and was using my new Opera browser (KILLER KEWL!), surfing and stuff...
for quite a while...everything was fine and things seemed to be working faster.
BUT the first time I went to My Computer and opened my D drive to browse for a folder...the *&%$# hourglass started flashing again. :-\

I know nothing about RAM or 'switching it around'...what would make it go bad?
Could a bad fan motor?
(machine is cool, I have an external fan blowing on it, but the internal one is sorta screwed up). Can I replace the RAM? How can I tell if it is actually going south?

My comp works well even with the irritating thing flashing..and I use big progs like Photoshop.
Now, sometimes it will stop flashing on its own, but I have not yet noticed what it was that I did that stopped it...
sometimes trying to end program for explorer, then cancel will stop it; but not every time.
OK I looked inside my comp, and a red light in there flashes twice when the hourglass comes up.
I think it is on the motherboard. The external red light that flashes when the drives are being accessed does not flash at all...


And what is the fpu bug?

I know I should probably upgrade to 98, but when I tried that before it told me I couldn't upgrade, I'd have to uninstall 95 (or whatever) and then install 98.
I have no idea how to do that, and of course dread installing all my programs again.

Again, the cursor starts flashing when I open Windows Explorer...slowly, 3sec hourglass, 3 sec arrow.

*praying someone knows the answer*


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Response Number 7
Name: chris db
Date: August 28, 2002 at 18:22:13 Pacific
Reply:

w95 did the same thing with me last week.
then it just stopped. No idea why.

ctrl-alt-del only gives you very basic information about what's running.
I remember the unregistered copy of
larsn taskinfo was quite good, it goes
right down to processes and threads and
open files, but without something to compare it to (taskinfos readout before thisall started) it might not be much use.

Have you looked in
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
and
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run with regedit?
maybe some new program or agent is runningfrom there?


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Response Number 8
Name: Darkastronomer
Date: August 28, 2002 at 19:41:28 Pacific
Reply:

Well, I have had win95 do this cursor flashing thing a few times 'back when' but it 'cured' itself somehow--and it never recurred like it has been doing lately.

I have looked in HKEY_CURRENT_USERS recently--looking for adware and other crap. I didn't notice anything weird in there...and I've run Adaware and SpyBot and virus scan a couple of times and used system mechanic to look at my start menu...also looked for stuff in there with REGEDIT.
for config sys there are three things 'I have no idea what they are':
HIMEM.SYS
EMM383.EXE
mtmcdai.sys
think those are usual windows things though.

I just did install some new progs (AVG virus, Outpost firewall, Opera browser) but I was having this cursor problem before I did that. BTW all those progs seem to work GREAT on 95. ;-)

Anyway, here is a trippy thing!
When I posted my last post here the second time (when you confirm)..and it posted, the CURSOR BLINKING STOPPED!
LOL!
maybe this forum cures problems all by itself!

>>Maybe the posting stopping it flashing will give someone and idea what the prob might be??

I was advised elsewhere to check to see if the mouse drivers were corrupted:

["Right Click "My Computer" then go to Properties | Device Manager
Click + sign next to Mouse, highlight the entry say it's Microsoft Mouse, then hit the REMOVE button.
Now reboot and windows will reload the mouse driver." ]

I'm worried the driver won't reinstall on boot up. Do you think it will? I hesitate to do this...am only a young Jedi...;-)

TIA


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Response Number 9
Name: mirk
Date: August 28, 2002 at 19:51:10 Pacific
Reply:

Yes, you can safely remove drivers and windows will reinstall them on the next boot.


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Response Number 10
Name: Darkastronomer
Date: August 29, 2002 at 08:44:54 Pacific
Reply:

I tried removing the mouse driver. Didn't work.
Any other ideas?


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Response Number 11
Name: Ramza
Date: August 29, 2002 at 15:07:50 Pacific
Reply:

Wow major stump. reinstall windows over itself. that might help.

Tom


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