Hi there people of the internet,

I have an old AMD Athlon 1700+ system running XP that I've had for about 7 years.

It hasn't been used for a month or so but after moving house recently I wanted to connect the PC to my LCD TV, however I encountered the following issues:

1. After loging in to Windows the system seems to hang with no start menu or desktop items (just my black wallpaper), but after Alt+Ctrl+Del and bringing up task manager I see that all the usual processes are running. There are about 5 system32 processes with one using much more memory that the rest, so I delete this and after about 10 seconds I see the start menue, desktop items etc. Why is this?
2. I have no sound anymore...it tells me there is no audio device installed...however I noted under Device Manager there were "Legacy Audio Codecs" etc installed. I uninstalled them, rebooted and when the "Found New Hardware" box came up after login it attempted to install the Legcay Codec + others but couldn't find the drivers. I have a feeling my XP drivers are all missing somehow - is there a place I can go to get them back? I have no internet at home (at work now hehe) but am able to download from work and use a flashdrive for files.

Many thanks for any assistance!!!

Cheers,
Tim

You should be able to download the drivers from the computer manufacturer's web site. What is the make and model number of the computer?

Thanks for the reply.

The computer company is a small "self build" business here in New Zealand - you choose the parts and they assemble, or they can supply generic ready-made systems.

I opted to take the first option - I chose the parts I wanted and they put it together for me.

I was hoping the generic audio drivers that come with Windows XP would do the trick...

Is the sound integrated on the mother board or a add-on PCI card.

If on the mother board, what is the make and model number of the mother board? The drivers should be available from the mother board web site.

If a PCI card, what is it's make and model number. If not readily evident on the card itself, there should be a FCC ID# that you can use to search to find what the card is. Once you have that you should be able to find the drivers for it from their web site.

Thanks Rich,

I'll see if I can spot the brand on the hardware tonight. Motherboard is a Soltek brand but will get specifics and find drivers that way, thank you.

Any ideas on what might be causing the delay in startup?

Did the computer ever work correctly? Was it okay the last time you used it?

How does it behave if you boot to Safe Mode with Networking? If better then something is starting at boot that is causing the problem.

Use msconfig to determine what is causing the problem.

These are good tutorials on using msconfig in XP or Vista:
How to use msconfig in Windows XP
How to use msconfig in Windows Vista

Click on Start then Run, type msconfig and press Enter.
Click on the Startup tab, record what is currently starting then click the Disable All button.
Reboot and see if it runs normal.
If yes then use msconfig to enable several items at a time till you find the culprit.

If no, boot to Safe Mode again, start msconfig and click on the Services tab.
Check the Hide All Microsoft Services box, record what is currently starting then click the Disable All button.
Again, do a regular boot, see if it runs normal.
If yes then use msconfig to enable services till you find the culprit.

Once you've found the culprit, uninstall it or find out how to eliminate it from your system.
Simply disabling it in msconfig is a temporary fix at best.
Enable everything else you disabled.

Thanks mate, I'll try and let you know how it goes.

Appreciate the help!
Tim