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From: Barry Watzman on 31 Dec 2009 19:58
You have a hardware problem. The first thing to do is run a GOOD,
self-booting memory diagnostic (memtest+ or memtest86). See if that
runs ok. If the memory diagnostic does run ok ... this could be a bad
motherboard.


Jeff wrote:
> Jeff wrote ...
>> <snip>
>>> I have not used it in a while, but I think you just plug it in (with the
>>> machine off), then turn on the machine, let it complete POST, turn it
>>> off and remove the dongle.
>> Well, since your "secret" service manual says to use the parallel port
>> dongle to remove lost passwords on this model, I think I'll try that first
>> and hope for the best. The machine is worthless as is, so there's not
> much
>> to lose...
>
> Well, I have good news and confusing news to report...
> The dongle worked as advertised. I booted with it installed, powered down
> and removed it, then restarted the machine. I was able to change the boot
> device and enter BIOS with the ability to change the boot order, etc.
>
> I then ran the recovery process. The ghosted image restored and then, when
> the machine restarted, I got the same problem that started it all... the
> WinXP splash screen came up, the progress bar completed one pass and then
> the video froze and showed a ghosted image of the WinXP logo off to the
> right of the real one and the two images were displayed in alternating
> vertical stripes, almost as thought you were looking through vertical
> blinds. There were also 4 or 5 thin vertical stripes that were flashing as
> though video was being displayed though them like it used to if you used an
> older monitor with a new system that couldn't display things properly. At
> that point, there was no further boot progress.
>
> In order to do a bit more troubleshooting, I booted the system with a live
> Linux CD - it booted and ran OK. I then tried installing Ubuntu. It
> started and then the screen went wonky again, with pixellating lines all
> over. I then repartitioned it, ran scandisk on the hard drive overnight (no
> errors), and reran the recovery process. Same shadow image when the XP
> splash screen appears - and it does this both during the ordinary booting
> process as well as during an attempted safe mode boot.
>
> As I was typing the above, I remembered one other thing I meant to try. I
> reset the BIOS to default values and reran the recovery process - still a
> messed up WinXP splash screen after the progress bar makes 2 or 3 passes.
>
> If anyone has ideas, I'd be grateful for the help.
>
>
>
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