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Dirk-Jan Huizin
5 Posts
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10929
March 23rd, 2005 07:00
[work around] Optiplex 280sx 'refresh' problem when opening screen properties
Problem Description
When you try to open your display properties or nearly any right-mouse action your screen starts flickering, some sort of odd refresh. Your start menu disapears the second you click it and your workstation becomes nearly unaccessable.
Affected Systems/Operating System
Dell Optiplex 280sx running Windows XP Home SP2
Workaround
Disable the hkcmd program from starting at boot by doing:
- Boot the computer
- Start > 'Run'
- Type msconfig and select the last tab (start up)
- Locate the hkcmd entry and uncheck the box.
- Press apply
- Press apply
- Press ok
- Reboot the machine and disable the popup you'll see at entering windows.
Technical Details
The Intel Graphics driver comes with a set of quicklaunch items which are integrated in the right mouse button menu, these quicklaunch buttons cause your system to crash or to respond as mentioned above.
After some research I found out intel claims to have fixed this problem in display driver version 6.6.*.* or higher, I tested it and found out it didn't help. So installing/updating the graphic driver doesn't help.
Note that removing the program hkcmd doesn't completly solve the problem, it is a simple work around.
Dirk-Jan Huizin
5 Posts
380
0
Posted March 23rd, 2005 13:00
Yes they appear with both intel and dell drivers.We have two machines for testing purposes a 170L and this 280sx.I had a little time to test the 170L and it works fine, the problem is only related to the 280sx, maybe its even limited to the DUTCH version of windowsXP home we are using.I don't have the resources to test all possibility's to tell you which platforms are effected.The systemmaintainer has been talking to dutch support agents who have givin it a level 2 or 3 something before I found the cause and fixed a work around.- Its not limited to Dutch versions of Windows ... I am working with english version and I am running into the same problem on an SX280 with the Intel Video drivers. I havent installed the Intel Generic ones yet, I am trying to salvage the Dell version for the moment.
Dirk-Jan Huizin
5 Posts
380
0
Posted March 31st, 2005 15:00
Good luck with the generic video drivers, I exported the registry settings to a .reg file which can be auto deployed by Novell and many other desktop managment utilities. When you import the .reg key it will make the popup showing on first reboot after you disabled hkcmd in startup tab at msconfig dissapear!That was my biggest problem, having the users to press ok and mark the 'don't show this again' message. With the .reg file this problem is solved aswell and we have a pretty neat work around.I will post this registry file first thing monday morning.- The generic drivers available from Intel were almost the same driver version as the Dell ones, so the problem did not go away.I just went into Regedit and removed the hkcmd.exe entry in:HKLM/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentControlSet/RunHavent had the problem since.Since this computer is going to be the model for my SX280 image I will just ghost the computer with this mod included and it wont come up again. The only issue would be if the video drivers had to be installed again for some reason. *shrug*~Matt
DELL-Chris M
Community Manager
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56891 Posts
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232143 Points
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Posted March 23rd, 2005 13:00
This issue occurs with both Dell and Intel drivers?
DELL-Chris M (old account)
#IWork4Dell