Freezing PCs

[TMGB]

When I first read the message below I thought to myself, yea right the power
button does not turn off the PC.  Well the IBM Thinkpad just locked up and the
power button won't turn off the pc.   A student worker tells me that his
Gateway powers off when shutdown is chosen.  The Thinkpad and most other
notebooks I've worked with power off when shutdown is chosen.  So, somewhere
there is a firmware or ROM switch built into these PCs that cannot be over
ridden by the power switch.  After this PC locked up the student pressed
ctr-alt-del and the program hpprty was not responding.  This is a Hewlett
Packard program that displays an icon in the system tray and the color of the
icon indicates the status of the HP5Si printer.  The student chose End Task
from the dialog box and the PC locked up completely even the mouse.  Resetting
the power switch would not power down the PC. The student had to remove the
battery and reinstall it to get the PC to reboot.  I can't say for sure that
the HP program caused this situation but it seems likely because this hpprty
has been causing all kinds of prinitng problems until we removed it from public
machines.

Karen, are you using networked HP printers?

Thomas

P or K Bary wrote:

> We are migrating from GEAC to Innovative this week, and are replacing all
> of our Wyse terminals, and now telnetting into a remote server.  I've
> gotten occasional complaints about PCs freezing up.  When this happens, the
> users are unable to power down the PCs from the power button.  I've seen it
> myself:  The power button stops working, and we have to cut the power from
> the surge protector.  Weird.
>
> We have new Gateways, and a couple of new Dells, and it's happened on both
> brands, and differenct PCs.  All are running Windows 95 B.  I'm beginning
> to believe that this is not a problem, but a *feature*.  But a feature of
> what?  Windows 95 B?  Any ideas?
>
> Karen Bary
> Arapahoe Library District
> Littleton, Colorado
> ksbary at csn.net or bary at qadas.com



--
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Thomas McMillan Grant Bennett           Appalachian State University
Computer Consultant II                  University Library
bennettt at am.appstate.edu                http://www.library.appstate.edu/admin/
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