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Thread: Infamous Blue Screen Of... Welcome?!

  1. #1
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    Unhappy Infamous Blue Screen Of... Welcome?!

    Everyone is of course familiar with the infamous Blue Screen Of Death. However, my Win XP Home has recently been bewitched by a whole new kind of blue screen - a welcome-blue screen. Welcome-blue is the tone of color you see in the screen where you click the user names to log in. Now, every now and then when I leave my computer alone and use the Switch User -function to lock my computer by getting it to the welcome screen, it has "crashed" when I return. By "crashing" I mean that the whole screen is blue, only the cursor is visible but it has become an hourglass. Everything is working under the blue veil though, modem lights are flashing and I can even tell that it returns a SETI@home packet every 3,75 hours or something, as usual. Some times my PC has been able to awake from the coma in ten minutes or something but usually not. I've kept it open for over 48 hours just to see that it's still "dead". At first I thought it could be something screen saver related, but no. My screen saver is set to go to welcome screen when it's removed and sometimes there has just been the blue screen waiting underneath it. Disabling the screen saver doesn't help, the welcome screen just keeps crashing... Keyboard doesn't respond so a cold boot is the only thing that works.

    My system specs:
    • Windows XP Home, up to date
    • AMD XP 1700+ (1,47 GHz)
    • ASUS A7V-333-X motherboard
    • 512 MB RAM
    • Connect 3D ATI Radeon 9000 64 MB (Omega drivers, but the crash occurred with Catalysts, too)
    • 80 GB Seagate, 200 GB Maxtor
    • Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 Digital
    • Hercules Smart TV Stereo
    • Microsoft Internet Keyboard
    • Logitech MX700 cordless mouse
    Q: Why do computer scientists confuse Christmas and Halloween?
    A: Because Oct 31 = Dec 25

  2. #2
    Senior Member nihil's Avatar
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    Have you tried disabling the power management functions such as sleep and hibernate?

    Also, are you running any "cleaning" software that starts when the machine is shut down?

    What background processes are you running?

    Have you tried switching SETI@Home off?

    The video drivers was a good thought, but I am sure that I have heard of issues with the sleep/hibernate functions?

    Otherwise it could be some sort of "deadly embrace" which is why I ask about the background processes. A favourite would be anti-virus scanning.

    Also, are you running more than one AV and more than one software firewall?

    You might like to try to narrow it down by disconnecting from the internet and switching off the AV and firewall, then see if you can provoke another occurrence?

    Just a few thoughts

    Cheers

    EDIT: I am not knocking SETI, but I did have something similar with XP Pro, ATI video drivers and Folding @Home

  3. #3
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    Hey, thanks for the really quick reply. Hmm, I should indeed try disabling the power management functions... I anyways turn the monitor manually off if I know that I won't be around for a while. In fact the power management could explain why a short pause away from the computer never gives the crash but a longer, always when I'm not watching, the crash occurs. I'll turn off the power management and report back to you in a week or so (or earlier, if it doesn't work)...

    There's usually quite a bunch of processes/applications running. SETI, dc++, Trillian, Opera, NetLimiter, Proxomitron... However only one firewall (Kerio Personal) and no Anti Virus programs, they have caused me enough troubles in the past.

    <offtopic>Besides I don't surf in suspicious sites nor download anything from them (and even when I do, Opera is not vulnerable to IE-attacks and I always manually commit a virus scan to suspicious software).

    Call me stupid but I find that those always-on virus scanners cause nothing but troubles for advanced users... Newbies might be safer using them. I also do an occasional full system scan if there are a lot of viruses in wild.

    And besides Kerio, I've got a hardware firewall too. </offtopic>
    Q: Why do computer scientists confuse Christmas and Halloween?
    A: Because Oct 31 = Dec 25

  4. #4
    AO French Antique News Whore
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    Did you check BIOS Power Management Setting?
    -Simon \"SDK\"

  5. #5
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    No, I did not, but I'd sure wonder if I had ever turned such features on. Although... I did update my BIOS a while ago and some other settings were reset... But I think this crash occurred even before that event. I'll check it the next time I reboot.
    Q: Why do computer scientists confuse Christmas and Halloween?
    A: Because Oct 31 = Dec 25

  6. #6
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    it sounds to me like a power management issue... if i remember correctly there was actually a ptch for this problem... cause microsoft found out that if you leave the power on at the login screen ad the computer sleeps, it will lock up. check microsoft.com for an update, cause i think there is one... if not, turn off the sleep mode (you never want it to shut off your hdd, cause at the welcome screen if it shuts them off your done)

    i love the new blue screen of death that comes with xp... microsoft claimed to have removed it, but ther is a new one that kills your computer and performs a physical memory dump when the system becomes unstable (usually from driver conflicts) now THAT is a screen i like to see.
    Learn like you are going to live forever, live like you are going to die tomorrow.

    Propoganda

  7. #7
    AO French Antique News Whore
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    Blue of Screen of Death are still alive and kicking in Xp! Memory Error and Driver mostly!
    -Simon \"SDK\"

  8. #8
    Senior Member nihil's Avatar
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    Hi ZeroOne,

    From your replies I think that we can rule out firewall and AV applications, and you obviously appreciate why I suggested them

    That would make the power management the most likely culprit by far.

    As a general rule, when I am troubleshooting this kind of problem, I always turn off power management both in the BIOS and in the Display management module, if only to "eliminate them from the enquiries"

    Not quite on topic, but possibly of use to others:

    I have just had a similar experience with a Win98se machine. If it was left inactive for a while it would just freeze (in any window) and required a cold re-boot. I switched off all the power managementfeatures and the screensaver, and this seems to have solved the problem.

    please let us know how you get on

    Cheers

  9. #9
    I was having a very similar problem for a few days but once I went to windows update and installed all of the patches, it went away. Also there should be an option in your display settings that says something like "On resume, show welcome screen", which you can uncheck.

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