I'm back.

Here's a summary of computer/monitor behavior:

Sun p.m.: Back to regular size print, but no time to play the game. I turned the computer off completely, or used the Restart feature, countless times, but there was no problem with any of the startups.

Mon. a.m.: Startup was fine, no problems with Windows or monitors.

Mon. eve.: Finally had time to play Revelation. I enjoyed the larger game window that the new monitor resolution setting gives me, but it may take a while before I truly resign myself to the less refined appearance of the graphics. After playing the game for 10 to 15 minutes, I saved and closed it and then turned off the computer. I did Restarts or power off/power on several times with no problems.

Mon p.m.: After that, since I was a day late with my weekly computer cleanup (using AVG Anti-spyware, formerly ewido, and Ad-Aware). I ran one immediately after the other, and removed quite a few tracking cookies, etc. I then used the Restart button, and that's when the trouble started. When the computer restarted, the Windows screen just stayed there with its crawling blue window for at least 5 minutes before I gave up. So I powered off and back on again, which gave me the option of allowing a normal start up -- which is what I did. But there was that Windows screen, never completely loading. I powered off and on again; again allowed it to choose normal startup; this time it completed its boot up. I then used the Restart button, but this time I was given the dark screens with the outboard monitor telling me that my resolution and Hz needed to be set right. I did recheck the refresh rate by going to settings, but (just as it has been) it was still set correctly at 60 Hz. I did not change the screen resolution. I powered off/on again, allowed normal startup, and I actually got another normal startup (everything loaded, there were no problems). I did Restart, and got normal startup. I used the Off button and then powered on again, and it started up normally by itself.

BUT

Tues. a.m.: When I turned the computer on for the morning, I didn't get past the Windows loading screen, so I powered off/on again. After allowing normal startup to proceed, again I didn't get past the Windows screen, so I powered off/on again. This time when I allowed it to proceed with normal startup, it booted up all the way. I tried a Restart at this point, and it Restarted normally.

BUT

Tues. a.m.: Two hours later, I turned on the computer and it did not get past the Windows loading screen. I powered off and then on again, allowed a normal startup, and again it didn't get past the Windows screen. After powering off and on again, and again allowing it to choose normal startup, this time it went past the Windows load but then gave me the two dark screens, with the resolution/refresh error message bouncing around the outboard screen. *sigh* Once again I powered off/on again, and this time it booted up with no problems.

I'm going to post this while I can.

btw, although this pattern looks as if the problem startups relate to some inner temp. of the computer, some gradual warmup to normal? I can attest to the fact that the ongoing pattern I've observed is . . . no pattern at all. Sometimes it will startup with no trouble at all even after a long off period.

I'm no Windows user, but these symptoms sound like a hardware problem to me. Possibly a bad connection somewhere; a card not properly plugged in, pinched wire, maybe a marginal battery, etc.

While there could be a hardware problem, this is a laptop. That means that a hardware problem on the inside of the case will probably require a repair technician to solve. Let’s look at some simpler (relatively speaking, of course) things first.

Suggestions:

1. It sounds like you have both the laptop’s built-in screen and the external monitor active at the same time, which is not a good idea. Press Fn-F8 as many times as required to have only one display showing the video image. And have the case fully open while you're using the laptop.

2. Make certain that there’s no obstruction to cooling air flow through the laptop’s case. There are two air vents on the left side of the back of the case, a vent on the front side under the lower right corner of the screen by the keyboard, and vents on the right side (when facing the screen) of the case at the back. There are no air vents on the bottom of the case.
-- a. Check the vents for dust clogs, and remove any that you find. This may require a Q-tip to gently/cautiously/carefully probe into the case a bit to get at dust, where that’s possible for a given vent. Shine a flashlight or other strong light source into the vents to be able to see what’s in there.
-- b. Don’t use the laptop on an actual lap, on blankets or newspapers or a tablecloth or on anything else liable to get pushed against or otherwise obstruct any of the vents.

Also, do some areas of the case get really hot? This will typically be on the sides or bottom of the case, maybe on the back. If so, when it’s hot, can you hear the case fans running? (The fans are immediately behind the two vents on the back of the case.) Can you feel any air flow around the vents?

3. The battery could be a problem, but if I understand correctly, you’re using the Dell 90-watt AC adapter with the battery installed in the case. Just to be certain there’s no obvious battery or other external electrical problem:
-- a. With the laptop completely powered down and the AC adapter unplugged, take the battery out of the case and look at the battery’s electrical contacts. If they aren’t nice and shiny, use a pencil eraser to gently buff/shine them. Clean off any eraser dust, then put the battery back into the case.
-- b. The device status light for the battery is located just under the screen, the right-most of the row of 3 status lights. With the laptop fully booted up, connected to an electrical outlet via the AC adapter, and not in power management mode, this light should be solid green when the battery is charging and flashing green when the battery is fully charged. It should NOT be flashing all the time; this means that the battery is probably defective.
-- c. Be certain that the electrical outlet into which the AC adapter is plugged is not defective, i.e., plug the adapter into another outlet, then start up the computer a few times.
-- d. If you’re using a power strip, especially one with anti-surge capability, plug the AC adapter directly into another outlet, then start up the computer a few times.
-- e Wiggle the AC adapter’s wall plug a bit while watching the computer’s status indicator lights and monitor screen – any flickering of monitor screen or lights, or anything else strange?
-- f Make certain that the AC adapter’s connector is firmly and completely plugged into the back of the computer, and that the pins in the connector are not bent or loose.
-- g. Wiggle the AC adapter’s computer-end plug a bit while watching the monitor screen and status indicator lights – any flickering of monitor screen or lights, or anything else strange?

4. Wiggle the computer-end plug of the external monitor’s cable while watching the monitor screen and status indicator lights – any flickering of monitor screen or lights, or anything else strange?

5. The left-most of the 3 device status lights is the power indicator.
-- a. When you have the startup problems and the light is blinking, the computer may be in standby mode. Press the power button to exit standby mode.
-- b. If the power indicator light is on and you have the black screen, your power management settings may have caused the monitor screen to turn off. Try pressing any key or moving the cursor to exit standby mode.


Work your way through the above, then post back and with results. We may need to talk about Restore Points, hard disk error checking, hard disk defragmenting, and Registry error checking.

Had a brown out then blackout here last night. I'll be finishing up tonight I guess.

I can tell you that I have *no* battery for the laptop unit. It is currently functioning only from its docking station.

I know nothing about the circuitry of the docking station, but if it depends on the laptop battery to act as a power supply filter, that might be your problem. In an automobile, for instance, the battery acts as a large capacitor to filter out voltage spikes generated by the alternator. In the same way, the AC adapter which provides DC power to many electronic devices is very simple, and does not contain much filtering to smooth out its dc voltage output, depending instead on the internal battery of the device it is operating (or charging). If the docking station has either an internal battery or a good filter, there is no problem, but if it does not, you should install a battery in the laptop (I think).

Having a battery installed in a laptop, while in a docking station or with the AC adapter in operation, is usually a requirement. Some laptops are smart enough to detect whether there’s a battery in place and will not boot up on AC power without a battery. Or if they do boot up, they’ll act flaky….

Short of buying a battery, the best you can do is undock and then re-dock the Inspiron at least twice in succession. There may not be good electrical contact between laptop and docking station (aka Advanced Port Replicator in Dell-ese), and undocking/redocking can remedy that. See Why Does My Dell Inspiron 8200 Not Power On in the Advanced Port Replicator?.

If that doesn’t solve the problem and you have the docking station plugged into a power strip, try plugging the docking station directly into the wall and into another outlet.

So far, so good.

I haven't finished the checklist. It will require me to have outside help because I cannot crawl under the armoire to wiggle the power strip plug in the wall outlet while watching the laptop power light at the same time.

But here are the first responses until I can finish up:

1. I've done the Fn-F8 until I have only the outboard monitor displaying a screen. I had to go in and set the resolution yet again, but it seems to be holding steady since then . . . through several startups and shut downs.

However, the first few startups still had the Windows screen loading endlessly, with me having to power off and allow normal startup when I started it up again. Although this seems like an improvement over the dark screens problem, it was still quite frustrating.

2. There were no obstructions to airflow for the cooling vents. I had been cautioned about that from the first and have continued to avoid having anything even near the computer, which sits on the top of a computer armoire.
- a. There were no dust clogs that I could see, even using a flashlight with a halogen bulb.
- b. Been warned about this one too.

Yes, the back right side gets quite warm, and yes, I can hear the fans come on annd feel warm air flowing.

3. I already mentioned that I have no battery.
- a. N/A
- b. N/A
- c. through e. I checked the cord from the power strip to the docking station and wiggled the wall plug, which is quite loose (not the plug connection to the outlet but the outlet itself -- hmmm). Because this is really the only possible outlet for me to use, I will just have to be careful it is not disturbed (by the resident cats, for instance).
- f. Done. No problems.
- g. Done. No problems.

4. Done. No problem.

5. a. and b. N/A and N/A. btw, when I referred to "dark" screens, I had intentionally choosen the term "dark" rather than "black" because I was referring to screen(s) that obviously had power coming to them, yet were not displaying anything. If the room is dark, for instance, you can see a slight "glow," with the screens appearing dark gray, but not black.

I also did undock and redock the laptop three times in succession.

Something seems to have worked. I was able to boot up this morning over and over again with *no* problem. With all the inconsistencies I've seen, this isn't conclusive yet, but it sure was encouraging!

After work (before editing this morning's post) I had opportunities to do "cold" boots twice, and again there were no problems. So it may be time to move on to "Restore Points, hard disk error checking, hard disk defragmenting, and Registry error checking."

Let me remind you that either back in this thread or even further back while we were still on the Riven board, I mentioned that before installing Revelation, I did all your recommended preparations, including disk check, defrag, and registry error checking.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: LynComeLately,

Hoping H_G will come by to read and respond to the above.

I'll always come by. Of course, being an unpaid volunteer, my personal life will occasionally intrude upon my Moderator duties. Which means that I'll sometimes not come by as often or as quickly.

Be that as it may, sounds like you're past your dark screen problem. Moving on to "Restore Points, hard disk error checking, hard disk defragmenting, and Registry error checking would include asking whether you'd done the error checking, etc. (which you've answered), preparatory to video driver installation.

Have you played Revelation, now that you no longer have startup problems, and did the game play properly? If not, do you want to proceed to video driver installation?

What! You have a *real* life? (These boards need an emoticon for "tongue in cheek.")

I've been so busy with the troubleshooting list, that I haven't been playing the game. So it's a good thing you asked.

Going back and doing some game play has confirmed that nothing has changed there. I still get a special hourglass that shows up each time I give a command to move forward. Then I hear the DVD start spinning and finally the screen will show the new position.

I hadn't mentioned that every once in a while, I even get graphics that are wacky. I can tell it's supposed to be the next "frame" (or cube/?), but some horizontal lines of pixels will be all slightly out of sync. Why not vertical? I don't know, but it's been horizontal each of the 4 times it's happened. Each time I've just quit the game and then reloaded from a previous point.

In any case, I am ready to proceed with the NVIDIA driver and BIOS update. I only want to know in advance what to do if my screens go black . . . power off and then start up in safe mode?

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Sun. a.m. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Arghhhh!!!!

I spoke too soon! Every time I've rebooted since I played Revelation again, Windows has never finished loading and I've had to do a power off/on with allowing normal startup. Curiously, once I've allowed the normal startup, I can click Restart, and it does restart with no problems. Only if there's been a significant amount of time between Turn Off and the next boot up do I find Windows trying to load indefinitely, leaving me no choice but to power off with the power button.

I have no clue where to go from here, but it seems we're *not* ready to install new drivers and a BIOS update.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

BTW, thank your wife and family for me. I sure appreciate the time you've been able to devote to being a board moderator and tech help!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: LynComeLately,

It may be that your startup problems are somehow related to Revelation. Unusual, but possible.

Try the following:
-- a. Copy the \myst4-revelation savegames folder from C:\Documents and Settings\<your user name>\My Documents to another location on your hard disk, to back up your game progress.
-- b. Uninstall Revelation using Control Panel’s Add or Remove Programs, and then defragment your hard disk. Reboot when defragmenting is complete.
-- c. If the startup problems continue, again check your Registry for errors. As a reminder, some Registry utilities are:
-- Symantec's Norton SystemWorks - Norton Utilities WinDoctor.
-- Rose City Software's Registry First Aid.
-- VCOM's Fix-It Utilities SystemRegistry-RegistryFixer utility.
-- Lexun Freeware's Registry cleaner RegScrubXP 3.25.
-- Toni Arts' freeware Registry cleaner EasyCleaner 2.0.

Run whichever utility you use until no more *repairable* errors are discovered, and reboot when finished.

-- d. Even if the startup problems are gone after uninstalling Revelation (basis several startups, including after completely powering down the machine), check your Registry for errors as above.
-- e. Re-install Revelation as detailed under Installing and Re-Installing Revelation, "8. Clean-boot Revelation Re-install, Previous Installation" in Myst IV: Clean Boot Install/Re-install With Win XP.
-- f. Run Revelation, then restart your laptop.

OK. I'll be reporting back as soon as I can follow through on these.

Ugh . . . I should have thought to update this thread this mronging with a reminder that I'm now ready to move on to updating video drivers and BIOS for the Inspiron.

Sorry, Mr. G. I forgot we decided to keep the Inspiron thread separate from the Latitude thread. So, to quote myself from the Latitude thread (AKA "A new headache?")

quote:

The Inspiron seems to be behaving itself upon startup, so I'm interested in proceeding to the next step: installing the newest video driver for the NVIDIA GeForce and updating the BIOS.

As always, I am depending on you for the detailed instructions I need to carry out these procedures.


BTW, in my thread "Yeesha's books...gentle hint needed" in the Spoiler Discussion forum, JacaByte made the following comment about my "blue skies, night skies" problem:

"Night sky? This is a known graphical error with Myst IV. I can't remember what you need to say to the computer to fix it though."

The latest video BIOS update from Dell is available here. However, there's always the risk of a dead BIOS when doing the update, so let's install video drivers first.

The latest video drivers for the GeForce4 440 Go video chipset are available:
-- From Dell, here.
-- From NVIDIA, here.


Let’s re-install the latest Dell driver:
-- a. Close all open applications, and download the driver to a folder, NOT to your Desktop.
-- b. Print out the Installation Instructions at the bottom of the download page, then close back to the Desktop.
-- c. Unless you’ve very recently done so, carry out steps 1 through 5 under Overall Windows and Hard Disk Tune-up in Myst IV: Clean Boot Install/Re-install With Win XP.
-- d. Create a current Restore Point.
----- 1. Click on Start > Help and Support.
----- 2. Click on Pick a task, Undo changes to your computer with System Restore > Create a Restore Point > Next.
----- 3. Follow the Wizard's instructions to create the Restore Point, then close back to the Desktop.
-- e. Close all anti-virus/adware/spyware/pop-up software running in the background.
-- f. Install the latest end-user runtime release of DirectX 9.0c, available starting here.
----- 1. Go to the DirectX End-User Runtime Web Installer page and click on Continue.
----- 2. When validation is complete, click on Download.
----- 3. On the “Do you want to run or save this file?” pop-up, click on Run, then on Run again.
----- 4. Click on the radio button to accept the agreement, then click on Next.
----- 5. When the installation completes successfully, click on Finish.
-- g. Install the video driver, following the Dell instructions you printed out.
-- h. Reboot when driver installation is complete.

If you get a black screen on startup, boot into Safe Mode and apply the Restore Point created above.
-- a. During bootup, press F8 multiple times, then select Safe Mode as the boot option.
-- a. In Safe Mode, click on Start > Help and Support.
-- b. Click on Pick a task, Undo changes to your computer with System Restore > Restore my computer to an earlier time > Next.
-- c. Select the desired Restore Point, follow the Wizard's instructions to apply it, then close back to the Desktop.
-- d. Reboot into normal Windows. The restore process can be lengthy, so don't get impatient. And you may need to reboot more than once.

If you don’t get a black screen but the Dell driver doesn't help or causes additional problems, you could roll back to the previous driver.
-- a. Close all open applications, then click on Start > Control Panel > Display.
-- b. Click on Settings > Advanced > Adapter.
-- c. Click on Properties > Driver > Roll Back Driver.
-- d. Follow the instructions, close back to the Desktop when complete, and reboot.


Inspiron 8200 information is available from Dell:
-- Drivers and downloads
-- Manuals

So . . . just to confirm:

Before proceeding with the original plan to install the newest GeForce driver from NVIDIA, I am going to REinstall the Dell driver that is currently running?

OK, I guess that's what you've already said, but because that step was not anticipated, I want to be sure.

Yeah, let's re-install the Dell driver. Just to be certain that we've got a known base from which to go further.

< I'm only paranoid because everybody's out to get me! >

OK.

All done.

No problems.

No need to use the restore feature.

What's next, O paranoid one?

No problems with the driver install. That's good!

Do you still get the Revelation configurator note saying that the graphics driver isn’t up to date? And how does Revelation play - still choppy, sound not in sync, or whatever?

The configurator does not pop up each time I open the game, but I just checked it and there's still a question mark rather than a check mark in the column next to Compatible Graphics Driver. When I click to close the configurator, a warning pops up to tell me that "the configuration utility detected that [my] system is not complaint with the minimum requirements for playing Myst IV Revelation." The graphics driver is identified there as Dell 8200 (Build 4258).

I launched a brand new game and found the video synch better (is this my imagination?), but there is no change in the graphics issues with the Atrus-Katherine letter, the fireplace lights diagram, or the spotlight in the atrium (i.e., I still see skyscapes for both closeups in the bedroom and the spotlight is a simple white "cone" not well-aligned with the lamp).

The pause preceding every move forward seems about the same. Certainly it is still long enough to prompt the in-game hourglass, and the forward step takes longer than it does on the Latitude machine I have on loan from my Company.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 4 hours later - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Oh . . . No-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o!!!

I had turned the computer off to go out for awhile. When I came home and turned it back on, the blue bar on the Windows screen just kept crawling and never finished loading -- just as it was doing sometimes before we addressed my startup problems a month ago. I did some restarts with the computer (after allowing a normal startup) and then a couple tries of turning it off and back on with the power button, and it seems to startup fine again.

But having even that one time has brought back jitters. What is it on the Revelation disc(s) that my computer doesn't like?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: LynComeLately,