Done that already. Runs like a dream on my Debian Live key.
Actually i've just read something about disabling ATI's 'hot key poller' so i've got my fingers crossed
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I'm running out of ideas. I've never come across this XP Media Center before.
All significant drivers are up to date i think. Somehow i think it could be IO/storage - related.
Any effective action plan suggestions would be very welcome at this point. I'm on the point of changing the OS
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Did you try formatting and reinstalling like you suggested you might try in the other link? Any laptop will generally show 2 monitors but a media center laptop may show 3 if it has a TV connection as well as external VGA and the laptop monitor itself. I kind of think the 3 monitor issue is a bit of a red herring and wouldn't spend any more time exploring that aspect. This really looks like more of a driver/software issue. You should try running dxdiag and see if anything shows up there (start->run->type dxdiag). Look under the display tab - are directdraw, direct3d and agp texture accelerations enabled?
>>Did you try formatting and reinstalling like you suggested
Not yet
>>I kind of think the 3 monitor issue is a bit of a red herring and wouldn't spend any more time exploring that aspect.
I think you're right
>>You should try running dxdiag and see if anything shows up there (start->run->type dxdiag). Look under the display tab - are directdraw, direct3d and agp texture accelerations enabled?
I could give that a try but i think it's really something quite low level - it still runs (more or less as) badly in safe mode
I say to a chkdsk, and then a defrag. Live CDs run out of a ramdisk, if it's a hard disk problem they'll work fine.
The next thing I would do is start up task manager (ctl-shift-esc) and look at the processes that are running. You can add different counters by going to View> Columns. I'd add Mem usage, threads, and Pagefaults. CPU should already be on there.
Restart your computer and look for big numbers.
>>I say to a chkdsk, and then a defrag. Live CDs run out of a ramdisk, if it's a hard disk problem they'll work fine.
Done it. The box runs like a dream on my Debian Live key
>>
The next thing I would do is start up task manager (ctl-shift-esc) and look at the processes that are running. You can add different counters by going to View> Columns. I'd add Mem usage, threads, and Pagefaults. CPU should already be on there.
>>
Done that long ago ;-)
I think i'll close this if that's OK. I suspect it could be buggy video adapter drivers. I reinstalled, but XP Pro and it was all going fine, until i installed what i thought were the correct video drivers. Suddenly it all started looking slightly iffy again, so i 'deleted the adapter' and it settled down again.
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by: dbruntonPosted on 2009-10-02 at 03:35:58ID: 25476569
Grab a live Linux CD and boot from that. See how it runs like that. If it is OK then wipe the computer and reinstall XP Media Center. You could well have a stuffed installation of some type.