Unpredictable Safe Mode forced on me at times

Hello,

At times when I turn on my computer I, as usual, choose #1 from the start up list. I think my usual Windows desktop will appear but instead I get a fixed hourglass on a black field-- the mouse cannot move the hourglass. I hit Ctrl-Alt-Delete and the computer re-boots but, because of this perhaps odd problem, I'm forced instead to take #3, Safe Mode. I see Safe Mode start up, then I click on the "OK" in the Safe Mode advisory message box, and then have the usual Safe Mode desktop. I next just go to "re-start" and my regular, non-Safe-Mode Windows starts up with no problem. This seems to happen unpredictably-- I'm not sure if there's some pattern to this or not.

My other apps seem to be OK.

I should tell you that I have a modified, IE-free Win98SE OS. This computer had been Win98FE but a few months ago I upgraded to Win98SE. I also used the freeware '98Lite' to get rid of IE. [I only favor and use Firefox.]

What could be causing the apparently unpredictable, forced Safe Mode startups?
Is some file/files missing?
Is there a way to stop this minor annoyance?



[My OS is Win98SE, modified and free of IE.]

Thanks,

Stan

 

Not sure when exactly

Hi Christer,

I'm not sure when the problem began. I think it's recent, that is, it seems to be a new problem (but again, I'm not 100% sure about this-- I just can't remember).

I suppose that if I had to guess about this I'd say that the problem is newer than the "modification" of my OS-- I upgraded from Win98FE to Win98SE probably in August 2006. And I don't know if the installation of some app was or might be responsible for this-- I just can't recall. It only seems to happen now and then- not all the time when I start up my computer. [I'm wondering if something not quite right happens during use of my computer but maybe something not so bad that a crash occurs and producing a BSOD. After using my computer for some time, I then shut off my computer and start it up the next day and suddenly have this problem again. I'm puzzled!]


Stan

 

Hi Stan,
I'm certain you have been around here long enough to have updated antivirus and antispyware, although I might suggest getting a second opinion by going to an online virus checker (different manufacturer to the one you have, see the Stickies at the start of the Security forum) and having a second antispyware program, but only running the second one occasionally (turn off settings for it to run at startup or in the background). I have both Spybot and AdAware and run AdAware occasionally, one picks up what the other might miss.

My main suspicion would be drivers. Check in Device Manager in both Safe Mode and in normal mode for problems listed in Device Manager (Control Panel -> System -> Device Manager tab). After the upgrade the main drivers may be need to be reinstalled or upgraded.

Matt

 

Hello Matt,

Thanks for your thoughts and tips.

For many years I've used F-PROT for anti-virus. [The freeware F-PROT I have runs in DOS and of course I have to activate it. I always update it when I get an update email message from the F-PROT people.] I also use the freeware Avast which is running all the time. I also use AdAware and Spybot and I update those frequently too.

Yes, the problem may be due to drivers. I've been using Win98FE from June 1999 until a few months ago when I upgraded to Win98SE. Not so long ago, I did have headaches with sound and asked for help in this forum. You see, I bought this circa-2000-built, used IBM tower in March 2005. The HDD had been wiped so I put Linux on it. Then I wanted to continue to have a Win98 computer and I wanted to get rid of my old computer which I got in June 1999 (the Win98FE one). So I wiped the Linux on the IBM and installed Win98FE. I also used the freeware '98Lite' to remove IE. Then, this past August (as I recall), I upgraded the OS to Win98SE.

I do have my Win98FE disc and another for the Win98SE upgrade. But I really don't have discs for drivers for other hardware items. I had to find them on the Net and download them. Intel made the motherboard and Intel used sound electronics which are integrated into the motherboard. [The sound is furnished by "Intel 82801AA I/O Controller Hub - AC'97 Audio Adapter PCI ".] I did find some Intel files which had the drivers for my computer and I'm sure I still have those files.

But I always get a little scared when I have to remove drivers and re-install them-- I worry that things won't work and I'll have big problems in figuring out how to get hardware to work properly again. I really haven't done driver removal/re-installation that much since things used to run so smoothly for so many years in my really old Win98FE computer, the one I got in June 1999. I did find a Microsoft guide to installing drivers. It's here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/200842 I suppose this is a good guide for me. Yes?

In my Win98SE OS, I continue to have a Win Media Player 9 which won't work, but I do have system sounds, can play music CDs, and use alternative players for Real and Windows media files. [The WMP9 opens but always says something is wrong with the sound system and so it never plays any Windows media sounds for me.]

I just found this which might be an explanation for my problem: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/143283/en-us The only difference for me, when reading this article, is that I don't get an error message (which are in red letters in the MS article): I just get the fixed hourglass on the black field, and then I hit Ctrl-Alt-Delete which causes a re-boot but only allows me to start up in Safe Mode. [Remember: this problem only occurs now and then, mysteriously.] The MS article says that the info and fix in the article apply only to Win98FE-- nothing is said about Win98SE so I'm now wondering if my forced-Safe-Mode problem would not be ended by the info and fix in this article. What do you think? Should I fiddle with the drivers first and forget about this article?


Thanks,

Stan

 

Stan that's great, filling in the details.

Good old DOS F-Prot, that's the AV I use. It has helped me identify quite a few viruses and find ways to remove them. F-Prot identifies all the suspicious files and let's you decide what can be done with them. On a FAT system you can run it from DOS Anyway, you look to be well covered for AV and AS.

I think you will find that it does not relate to your problem (I doubt you will find the Wnbootng.sts file), BUT, I think the second part where they use a Startup disk to replace the IO.sys file would be very well worth trying.

Did you get to check in Device Manager in both modes?

It is a good guide for solving driver problems with a piece of hardware that you know is having problems (they give an example as a modem) and also may have an incorrect set of drivers installed (so if you installed the drivers for a model 5678, when you should have installed the drivers for a model 5678a).
Unless we can spot a problem identified in Device Manager, we don't know which set of drivers might be loading incorrectly and causing your problems.
That method removes the Windows "list" of drivers that it can choose from. If you happen to fix this problem with that method, in the future, if you have to reinstall a driver, Windows won't be able to find it's .inf file unless you direct it to that "Oldinf" folder on your desktop or you reinstall the drivers completely.

I remember the problem with the audio drivers. You don't necessarily have to remove drivers, most dowloads from manufacturer's websites will install over the top of the current set of drivers.
You decompress/unzip the download to a place where you know where to find the files. The driver files should include instructions, maybe in the form of a Readme.txt or .doc file (or look for instructions where you download the files, for Intel, they have the name of the file and the link to download it). If you click on the name, it tells you what the file does and how to install it. You generally run the Setup or Install .exe file and the installation should be automatic.
Example, I went to Intel and looked up the Chipset Driver Installation Utility for the 845 family chipset
http://downloadfinder.intel.com/scr...=Windows*+98+SE&lang=eng&strOSs=18&submit=Go!
I clicked on the name of the file and went here:
http://downloadfinder.intel.com/scr...&strOSs=18&OSFullName=Windows* 98 SE&lang=eng
I clicked on the the readme.txt link and got here:
http://downloadmirror.intel.com/df-support/8178/ENG/readme.txt
The relevant section is:

(BTW, those drivers probably cover your chipset, see the bottom of my second link.)

We could not be certain that it is a problem with drivers, I might also suspect a problem with the allocation of resources, but again, you will need to look in Device Manager.

The full list
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/188867/en-us

Matt

 

So far, only a little done

Yes, I just did that. Maybe it's the fix that will work for me, for this problem. Time will tell I suppose.

In Safe Mode I only see a big yellow question mark for "Other Devices ". One entry is repeated twice here and each has a yellow question mark: "PCI Serial Controller ".

There are no yellow exclamation marks for anything in Device Manager while looking at it in Safe Mode.

Switching to Regular (Normal) Mode, I only find 1 yellow exclamation mark and it's found under "Network Adapter - IBM 10/100 EtherJet PCI Adapter with Alert on LAN ". [The other entry here - "DialUp Adapter" - is fine, OK.] Nothing else in Device Manager has a yellow exclamation mark.

Question: why in Safe Mode do I see a long list of entries - 13 of them! - under "Sound, Video, and Game Controllers" but in Regular (Normal) Mode I only see 2 entries there?

Matt, my time today I almost over. My Net connection will soon end and anyway I have to go to sleep. I'll have to return to the business of the drivers soon. Stay tuned-- I'll report soon on more of my adventures with drivers, MS articles, experiments, etc., etc.


Stan

 

OK Stan, let's look at your situation.

You have errors identified in Device Manager. The error for the PCI Serial Controller is a major part of your system and because the correct drivers are not available or Windows cannot install them it will very likely cause the problems you describe. The Network Adapter problem will be a result of this because Windows loads standard drivers for the PCI Serial Controller when you restart after going to Safe Mode. If the drivers were installed correctly the Controller would be listed as "Intel XXXXXX(model) processor to PCI Bridge ".

Your system may be running on other chipset drivers that are incorrect. The wrong drivers were installed.

I would say that when you did the upgrade from FE to SE you did so in normal mode. This is likely to result in a bad installation as you can probably see. An upgrade should be carried out in a DOS enviroment and the best is from a Startup floppy disk. The startup floppy creates a "virtual" drive and does not utilise any of the files on the harddrive at all.

Where do we go from here? The simplest course of action would be to go into Safe Mode, in Device Manager highlight and "Remove" the PCI Serial Controller. When you restart the Add New Hardware wizard will run, check the box for CD in the "search location ". Put your Windows SE upgrade disk in the CD drive and see if the correct drivers can be found. This is not dangerous, it will just go back to being the same as it was before if the correct drivers cannot be found. If it says "The drivers cannot be found ", go back and uncheck all the location boxes.

No luck, next step would be to install the Intel chipset INF utility. I think a few of your chipset drivers would be installed incorrectly and you will continual errors and slow performance. Here is the Have Disk method from Intel:
http://www.intel.com/support/chipsets/inf/sb/CS-009272.htm
If you have problems, use the method I quoted from the Readme file.

If that does not seem to work , you can uninstall them by going into Add/Remove programs and running the uninstaller for them.

I would be quite certain that some major chipset drivers are not installed or installed incorrectly. What you are finding is the symptoms of bad drivers, audio problems, network/ethernet problems, etc, etc. You will not get very far trying to stamp out the symptoms if you don't address the cause. All hardware is channelled through the chipset. Bad chipset drivers...problems all around the system. No amount of searching at MS will fix a chipset driver problem and the fixes always include "Update the drivers ".

As I said, I think the chipset drivers are the problem. You can search high and low for ways to try and rectify the symptoms, but you would be wasting your time. If you don't like working with drivers, ask around for someone to help you (there are many "Computer Societies" in my local area, check your's).

Matt

 

Well, I made a bit of progress

I followed the directions I could according to what actually happened when I removed the double entry that was listed under "Other Devices" and which had the yellow question mark. In Device Manager, under "Other Devices ", the double entry was "PCI Serial Controller ". Now there's no "PCI Serial Controller" and no "Other Devices" but things seem to be OK. In Device Manager, under "Hard Drive Controllers ", I now have: "Intel 82801AA Ultra ATA Controller ". [I don't know if that was there before. Maybe it's new and was put there yesterday during my correction efforts.]

But even though I downloaded and ran yesterday the latest Intel INF Utility Installation file (it seems I had an older one from some months ago), I can't get rid of something which I don't even use. It's now listed, under "Network Adapter ", as "Intel 8255x-based PCI Ethernet Adapter (10/100) ". I had removed the previous listing (which was: "IBM 10/100 Etherjet PCI Adapter with Alert on LAN ") and soon was offered about 4 entries to pick from. I picked the Intel 8255x-based..." one. I don't use ethernet. I use an internal, 56K, Diamond modem for my dial-up Internet connection so I don't know why it's important to try to fix this matter of the ethernet. Can I just ignore it? I can't seem to remove it because I'm forced to pick something and have my Win98SE system try to get drivers for it.

Well I know that drivers weren't found on any Win98FE CD nor on the Win98SE upgrade CD, and not even on the floppy disk holding a large number of *.inf (and other) files derived from the running of the latest Intel INF Utility Installation file. [Incidentally, Aida and Everest say my Intel motherboard chipset is the 820. I of course downloaded and ran the Intel INF Utility Installation file for that one.]

I don't think I have slow performance now or even recently before doing these things to fix drivers. The Win98SE OS seems to be fine and *slightly* faster than my really old Win98FE computer (450 MHz compared to my present 800 MHz IBM), the one I bought in June '99.

Well I'll probably try to remove *all* Intel labelled entries in Device Manager and then have the new hardware driver wizard find the latest ones in the numerous subdirectories in C:\Program Files\Intel\InfInst [That's where the Intel INF Installation Utility put them.] There are nine "ich*" subdirectories here and each holds a number of *.inf files plus other files. I put *all* of these many files on a floppy but that didn't help fix the problem of the yellow exclamation mark by the ethernet entry.

Considering all of the above, any other thoughts for me?


Thanks,

Stan

 

Some good news, lets hope installing the drivers for the PCI Controller means you no longer get thrown into Safe Mode. Certainly post back here if it starts happening again.

I looked at the audio problem thread, the machine is an IBM 6594-A3U. It would be good if you could get it identified at the Lenovo website, but you need Internet Explorer installed , oh well. If you go to the IBM Support website, click on the Personal Computing link, then enter 6594-a3u in the Product Search box you will find all the downloads for your system.
www.ibm.com/support
I can't link to the drivers page, they don't use direct links.

It's completely different from the modem. It is used to link computers together without being connected to the internet. Windows has built-in startup items that "look" for other computers or servers at startup. The Safe Mode problem could be due to this "searching ".

From the IBM (Lenovo) website, the drivers for the Network Adapter:
EtherJet driver for all OS - QA7Z33US - PC 300PL (type 6584, 6594, 6595)
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/license.do?filename=commercial_desktop/qa7z33us.exe
The Readme file for Etherjet QA7Z33US.EXE:
ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/pc/pccbbs/commercial_desktop/qa7z33us.txt
The instructions for unpacking the driver files:

I think you are getting the hang of working with drivers, just make certain that you have the driver files available then you can try all the installation methods, like running Windows update method, uninstalling and reinstalling using the New Hardware wizard, using "Let Windows find the drivers" or "Let me choose the drivers from a list ". If there are instructions with the drivers, of course follow those, although some instructions do not always work the way they are supposed to, mainly when you are upgrading the hardware (changing drivers for similar hardware).

If you have trouble and you know you have the correct drivers, use different methods of running the New Hardware wizard. As I think you know now, Windows will be searching for the correct Inf file for your hardware.

Good luck with it, you should find your system is very stable (on the hardware side, I can't vouch for the software side ) when the complete set of drivers is installed correctly.

Matt
PS forgot the hardware information for your system:
ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/pc/pccbbs/commercial_desktop/d4br5f.pdf
Quite detailed, IBM have a great supply of information on their computers.

(aside) I started out using a 300PL and researching how it worked at the IBM website , great database.

 

Thanks again Matt for your help. I'm not home now but was earlier today. While still at home, I did fix the "IBM 10/100 Etherjet PCI Adapter with Alert on LAN" by installing the proper driver(s). Now there are no yellow exclamation marks or yellow question marks in Device Manager. :-D

I've not tested *everything* yet-- I had to turn off the computer and leave home as soon as I fixed the "IBM 10/100 Etherjet PCI... ". So things will either be fine now or something might go wrong in the near future. [Of course, I'm referring to the unpredictable forced Safe Mode matter.]

I will.

Yes, I've used the useful IBM support webpages a number of times but I somehow, in the past, overlooked the *.exe file that has the driver(s) for the "IBM 10/100 Etherjet PCI... "

OK, I see.

The link to the file would not work from here and I think it's due to the fact that one has to agree to something at the IBM support webpage. At the IBM support page, I did a search for files for my computer (the IBM 6594-A3U) and found the one I needed.

Matt, I ran the downloaded IBM *.exe file. I then had to run an IBM makedisk.bat file which I ran from DOS. Running that file caused the needed driver(s) to be put on a floppy in the A drive. I then let Windows examine the floppy in A to find the driver(s) to fix the "IBM 10/100 Etherjet PCI... "

Yes, the IBM website is great-- lots of help and needed files.


Bye Matt- thanks for the help.


Stan

 

Thank yourself , I would be confident that you have nailed it. Windows now seems to be happy with the drivers.

Working with drivers can be daunting, MS tried to make it simpler with Win XP, but trying to get drivers certified by Microsoft is time consuming and of course expensive. Manufacturers may not be able to cover those expenses if they have chosen a lower-end market niche. For Win 98, we have to live with those drivers and their installation methods that are supplied to us. The methods for driver installation in Win XP has not magically improved because manufacturers cannot always afford to get their drivers certified with MS.
...Just a little background info.

Being faced with different methods of driver installation can be a pain, going through the same result time after time. Usually the trick is to change the installation method, but on some occasions I have given up and looked for other drivers for the same piece of hardware (like generic drivers for a modem). Fortunately, drivers from the major manufacturers have a standard set of instructions (although, as I said, these do not always work to a formula ).

You have done well, wish I could have given you a "Do this" method.


Matt