Hi all,

After suffering with screen freezes in Windows ME and after trying solutions from numerous posts, here and at other forums, the current situation exists:

At cold startup, Windows ME begins to boot and then sometime during setting up desktop icon, the screen goes blank and only by holding down the on/off switch can the system be restarted.If this is repeated 4 to 5 times, then Windows will boot up and stay up. Lately, as mentioned before, this happens after cold start, so if the system has been running and then switched off, it can always be restarted with problem.

Among the observations I have made, is that the problem also occurs when I run Linux (Lycoris) from cold. It this case, the screen goes blank, during the boot up, before the desktop is up. It also takes roughly the same number of attemps to get the system going.

From the above, it would seem that the problem is BIOS related, but I can't pinpoint the problem. I have tried everything that I know and have researched including the following:
BIOS upgrade/downgrade
ACPI enabled/disabled
APM enabled/disabled
card relocation
AGP 2x/4x
AGP Aperature 64M/128M

My system is as follows:
AMD 900 MHz
384 MB SDRAM
Creative Annhilator 2 (Nvidia Geforce2 GTS)
Creative SoundBlaster Live! Value
AZZA KT133TX (VIA KT133)
AWARD BIOS

Thanks for any suggestions.

How long have you had this PC ? A corrupted BIOS is a possibilty, do you have the corrrect settings documented ? Is your PC keeping correct time ,or is it losing time. Losing time is one of the symptoms of your coin battery on the M.B. losing its charge ! This battery keeps your CMOS settings when your system is powered down .You can buy a replacement battery at any place where they sell watch battery's ,Radio Shack etc. When you change the battery ,I was told if you put the new one in fast enough you may not lose your CMOS settings .If you lose the settings you can try and reset it to the default settings ! They say the life span of these battery's is 3-5 years. However many people never replace this battery , and I've seen 7 year old systems with the originial battery on the M.B. Its one thing thats simple and inexpensive you can try , hopefully this is the fix you need !
Good Luck Nick

hello
i would try nic,s good advice. if that fails try a diferant power supply.

The PC is just over two years old, but I'll change the battery anyway, and perhaps the PSU too.

The PC isn't losing time.

Thanks