>I uninstalled them all and tried to reinstall them when the computer >found them upon reboot, but that installation failed. The monitor >refresh is sluggish, and the Ethernet port still doesn't work. Any >suggestions or is it time to give up. Can't figure out if it's >hardware or software or both at this point.
Looks like you are in driver hell. Sometimes the cuase of the problem is a conflict caused by a driver that is not flagged. To get around that you must uninstall devices that are both flagged and not flagged with a "?" and then let plug and play put everything back together, hopefull in an order that will work. Best to try this after you are sure you have current drivers for everything involved. Driver voodoo can drive you nuts. The problem could also be a too new driver. One that doesn't really match the version of the OS you are running. This is the toughest thing about reinstalling Windows. You can't be sure that the OS and the bunch of drivers you got are really compatable. Another approach woule be to install OS and drivers from your original CD that came with the computer. After installing and making sure everything works you are starting from a known state. Then start updating and checking gradually while taking careful notes. ************************************************************************* ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *************************************************************************
