XP taskbar freezes

[comfortably_nmb]

Hi all, I'd appreciate help with this one. My firm have just received 5 new Toshiba laptops Satelite Pro 6100 with XP Pro. I noticed on 3 of them that the taskbar and the start button remain inactive for a bout 10 minutes after sarting.

The taskmanager reports that cpu process are low (99 idle). also, the desktop is normal. If I copy icons to the desktop I can work normally, but I can't access all programs till the bar becomes active.

I have installed all of the available critical updates from the microsoft site and I have a feeling that one or these may be the problem. It would be great if you dudes can help me with this.
rgds to all
CN

 

[Goalie]

In cases that I've seen similar to this in the past, the taskbar was waiting on a process to load and put itself in the systray. You might try running msconfig and removing everything from bootup. Then add programs back one by one until you find the culprit (if this is indeed what's causing it.) You can also do this in reverse, to avoid making the system unbootable/useable. Only catch there is if it's a combination of programs.

Another thing that I've noticed that can sometimes drag down a laptop is network initialization- I have a Satellite 1850-s203, and when a computer that's on a crossover cat5 cable comes up, the machine will virtually freeze for a few seconds while they work out the nitty gritty of the lan. This doesn't sound like what you're experiencing, but you might try disabling the network for a boot or two if nothing else has worked.

Hope this helps some.. If you can provide us with more details on what services and programs are running at startup, any pcmcia cards you have, system stats, swap space, etc. we might be able to help you work through this a little better.

Good luck!

 

[chris harrison]

XP SP1 conflicts with the sound driver; revised version can be downloaded from support.toshiba.com, selecting 6100 Satellite Pro, and filtering by sound/XP. Uninstall old sound driver, reinstall new. This will restore the sound and my case also fixed the freezing toolbar problem.