I wonder if someone can figure out THIS problem -- that I ran into in resurrecting an old pc running Windows 3.1.

About a year ago, the pc stopped booting to the desktop, instead hanging up after it displayed the Microsoft flying windows screen (with the text “Microsoft Windows Version 3.1.”) After hours of fiddling with AEB, config.sys, etc. I removed all my application programs and reloaded the Original Software (including the OS) from the CD that came with the pc. I was disappointed to find that the pc still stalled on boot at exactly the same screen.

I happened to leave the pc in that stage for about an hour. When I returned, I was surprised to see an error message to the effect that an error was found in Sound Blaster 16 and, remarkably, that the previously stalled screen was gone! After clicking a few OKs, my desktop of icons reappeared, for the first time in a year!

The pc seems to be working fine. But I still have the problem of booting it. (Waiting an hour for the Sound Blaster error message to appear is hardly convenient.)

Needless to say, I’d welcome any ideas. … wdc