Topic: cookies disrupt my screen size

[booch]

Hi all,
ok, now this is a good one.
have older pc, NEC Ready, P2 350 Mhz, non-oem 320Mb RAM, 2 HD's, (original 8.2Gb, plus non-oem Maxtor 80Gb, partitioned into 3 chunks, 30Gb, 30Gb and 20Gb). CD-ROM drive and non-oem CD-RW drive. On board sound, and non-oem diamond viper video card
Have IDE's set up as follows: IDE 0 (master=80Gb HD/slave=oem CD-R),
IDE 1 (master=CD-RW/slave=oem 8.2 Gb HD).

Now, i have a problem ever since adding the maxtor 80 Gb HD.
It seems that whenever cookies are loaded on the machine, and it is shut down, and restarted, the screen settings go from 1280x1024, or whatever they are set at, to 640x480.
When the desktop is appearing like this, I am unable to change the screen settings even through right click/properties, and though the video card is recognized.
You have to go and manually remove cookies through control panel/internet options/remove cookies and restart to correct the problem. Or Adaware scan.
I used to think it was a spyware problem, but since, figured out after many adaware scans, that there were only cookies that were being removed, and not 'spyware'.
Have Norton anti virus updated and running, zone alarm firewall in place, spybot and adaware to scan.
Thinking maybe IRQ's are conflicting somehow when cookies are loaded.
Is there a way to reset IRQ's to Factory settings and go from there?
Or, are there particular IRQ's that everything should be assigned to that I should compare to?

Sorry for lengthy post, am planning to build new pc, but want to keep this one for second tube.

[Simon]

Hi Booch,

I have to admit, I've never heard of cookies affecting screen resolutions before.  Are you assuming it's all cookies doing this, or could you narrow it down to one baddie, and block it permanently, if indeed, that is the cause of the problem?  

Hopefully a proper techie will be along soon to offer some better suggestions.  

[Rodders]

Hiya Booch,

Just a hunch, but it seems likely that your graphics chipset cannot handle the screen resolution you've picked.  Therefore the 'cookies' thing may be an unrelated issue.

Suggest you add a graphics card with a bit more wellie.  

[booch]

well, I've had the video card(freebie) added in there for 2 years I believe, and never a problem until 80Gb hard drive added in August.
During that upgrade, a few things came up that may or may not be related. Removed superdisk 120Mb 3.5" drive to free up IDE spot, and added standard 1.4Mb 3.5" floppy drive to floppy connector on mobo.
Had some conflicts with IRQ's for pnp devices, but they were clouded by 'missing' driver errors.
Got all drivers corrected, everything 'works', but now screen size issue on occasion.
Maybe just pushing this old pc too hard.
I am thinking maybe a video card/IRQ conflict.
I actually never deleted the OS off the old HD.
Maybe I should boot from the old HD(IDE 1) go through the IRQ assignments, and then boot from the new HD(IDE 0), and again, examine the IRQ's, then compare the two, and see whats different.
I think I asked this in a previous post, but will ask again.
Is there an easy way to list IRQ assignments, without going through every item in device manager?
I am running win98 on old HD, and win 98se on new HD.

[Sandra]

I would have thought that letting the bios set the IRQs by itself would be the best bet, have you altered anything in there from auto for the IRQs  

[booch]

good question.
i had some 'expert' friends assist me with the problems i faced after the new HD was installed, meaning what we determined to be driver problems.
I do know that we were in the setup a few times, and perhaps one of the 'experts' toggled something like that over.
may i ask where that setting is, so i can check it to see what it is set at?

[Dack]

Device manager, do a 'properties' on the computer and that should give you a list of the IRQs and addresses used.

Sounds like your graphics card is not getting an available interrupt and so not loading the driver.

Seem to remember a similar problem when I installed 98....came down to the graphics card required a specific interrupt that was being nabbed by a PCI modem. Had to manually configure the modem to the IRQ 3/4 area instead of the 11 it had decided to use.

[Sandra]

If Dacks suggestion doesnt help you fix it then if you have your mobo manual or can download one from the net, it should tell you which part of the bios section the IRQ assignment is in, otherwise just look through the different screens for "IRQ assigned by" and set it to auto.
Another way you could try is to set the bios to either load bios defaults or load failsafe defaults, if that is an option then check Dacks suggestion again  

[booch]

been away from site for a bit.
checked in bios to enable system to automatically set irq's, all settings looked correct.
toggled enable auto detect pnp, but that did not improve or make anything worse when rebooting with cookies.
I did have a conflict with the modem, as dack described, but to resolve, i removed it the card from the pc.
i use cable internet, so did not need the 56k modem.
is it possible the drivers could still be loading without the card installed, and causing the error?

[Sandra]

I wouldnt have thought so but I would have uninstalled the modem from the device manger then shut down and physically removed the card before restarting the pc to ensure that the drivers were uninstalled  

[booch]

i will look into removing the device through the 'remove' menu, then try it out.
gotta be a conflict, old old system.
am building a new one, or trying to assemble list of components and stay with in reasonable budget.