Can't get ORDER BY to work without losing sqlserver

If I type select col1 col2 from tablename order by col1 I always loose my slqserver connection. If however I type select * from tablename order by col1 it works. I really need to do this simple thing... I need to be able to select a few fields in sorted order of one of the fields. I've tried putting the appropriate fields into a view but there's the same problem. I'm getting very frustrated as I cannot see a way around this problem. Can anyone suggest a way around? Thanks, Kate