Aggravation building new computer

[jtr1962]

As some of you may know some time back Merc sent me an A7N8X-E motherboard and XP2500 processor. Last week I bought some RAM for it, and on Tuesday a nice Lian Li PC-60 case arrived. I assembled everything, put in a spare floppy, CD-ROM drive, and 40 GB Maxtor, and then installed Windows 98. I later planned to install either 2000 or 2003, but for now I was interested in setting up my new hardware and doing a dry run, so to speak. I didn't want to be complicated by the mechanics of installing an OS that I'm not familiar with.

Anyway, the install went fairly smooth, Windows recognized most of the things, and the disk that came with the motherboard took care of the rest. For the graphics card I was using a Hercules 3D Prophet II GTS that I had obtained from Timwhit some months ago. The problems started when I started to load drivers for the card. The install was smooth enough, and upon reboot everything looked fine (600x800, 32-bit color). I opened up the advanced adjustment part of the display settings to see what adjustments the card had. I tried a few but the overlay adjustment screen crashed the system immediately. Upon reboot I had to install the drivers again but all was well. Again the overlay adjustment crashed the system. Upon reboot again everything seemed OK-for a while. I turned the system on and off a few times rearranging hardware. Upon one reboot I was in 480x640, 16 colors, and Windows told me there was a problem with my settings. I also noticed that when I looked in the device manager there was almost nothing there-as if everything attached to the PCI bus no longer existed! I tried unsuccessfully several times to reinstall the video driver. A fresh install of Windows fixed the missing hardware problem, and most things worked, but I absolutely couldn't get more than 16 colors in any resolution, even at 480x640, and even with the default VGA driver. Apparently everything else worked-the onboard sound, LANs, etc.

I figured maybe the graphics card had a problem, so I tried a few PCI cards I had. Same thing-absolutely no more than 16 colors. Several reboots later the PCI adaptors just plain didn't work at all-the computer refused to even POST. It posted and worked fine when I put the Hercules AGP adaptor back in, but no luck installing the driver or getting more than 16 colors. I also thought maybe the power supply was to blame since it had been a slightly flaky one I had replaced in my present machine. I tried swapping in another supply-same thing.

I looked around to try to diagnose the problem but according to device manager all the hardware was working correctly. The only problem I saw after digging around enough in system information-components-problem devices was ten instances of APCI IRQ holder for PCI steering not working correctly. Also, at this point my onboard sound stopped working as well but the LAN still works. I'm not sure if this is even a driver problem since it seems as if the board gradually just got worse and worse the more I ran it.

At this point I'm open to suggestions. Putting aside that I have no sound and crappy graphics, the system still seems rock solid and stable, but in its present state it's useless to me. I also dropped nearly $200 between the case and the memory. I really have no use for either if I can't get this thing working again. The plan was once I was comfortable with the new system to let my mom use my present one. Has anyone else seen something like this, and can it be fixed? Is this another board with problem capacitors even though nothing is obviously bulging or leaking, though I would think that would make the entire system unstable, which it isn't? I can certainly fix that if need be. Worst case scenario I'll try to get my money back on the RAM (one stick of 184-pin, 1GB, PC3200 in case anyone wants to know) and case, see if Merc wants the XP2500 back since it still seems good, and keep the motherboard as a souvenir. I've played around with this for the better part of two days and I'm drained. I don't want to put much more time or any more money into this. Maybe this would be a good motherboard for someone to use solely for folding@home or as server since it is mostly functional outside of graphics and sound.

This also means all bets are off to upgrade my OS. I can't start fresh on my present machine for a variety of reasons. The idea was to install 2000 or 2003 on the new one, and as I used it I'd gradually add the applications I normally used by looking at what's on my current machine. Once everything was on it, it would be my main machine.

 

[Tannin]

You have a classic case of resource management hell, JTR. ASUS motherboards are renowned for it, and running Windows 98 just fans the flames.

Reset everything to the BIOS defaults.

Move your PCI cards around into different slots. As a rule of thumb, avoid slot 1 and (if possible) slots 4 and 5. Slot 3 is usually the safest.

Switch off everything that you don't actually need: e.g., spare serial ports, printer port if you are using a USB unit, and so on. Your aim is to free up as many system resurces (IRQs and memory addresses) as you can, so that the brain-dead ASUS BIOS and the terminally moronic Windows plug & pray system have an outside chance of getting something right for a change.

We used to get this sort of grief all the time back in the days before we stopped selling ASUS motherboards. Believe me, I've had lots of practice.

Finally, if your next install of Windows 98 doesn't seem to want to work, stop right there. The Windows 98 plug & prey system is the worst one ever invented in the entire history of the universe. Oh, except for the Windows 95 system, which was worse again. Get rid of it. Install Windows 2000 or XP. Yes, you'll still have the horrible ASUS motherboard to contend with, but the NT-based Windows versions really are a hell of a lot better at plug and play stuff.

 

[Tannin]

PS: Nvidia 1st and 2nd generation motherboard chipsets were, bluntly, crapsville. Only with the Nforce 3 did Nvidia get their minds around making a chipset that just works. Experiment with different drivers if you can find any - but note that Nvidia's mainboard chipset support for Windows 98 is poxy at best.

PPS: It's a good practice to always load mainboard drivers first and reboot the machine before you go near the other stuff, such as video, sound, and modem drivers.

 

[jtr1962]

Wow, thanks a million Tony! :thumbleft: I'm going to get little sleep and take a break, but I'll post later how it went. Glad to hear the motherboard is probably still OK, just a little confused. It sure sounds like you've spent your share of time dealing with this exact same problem.

BTW, the only PCI card I have in there is a Promise controller since there are no IDE drivers for this chipset for Win9x and the controller defaults to a dog slow 6MB/sec or so without them. Adding the Promise controller cut my boot time by about a third.

Also, in the throes of desperation I had flashed the BIOS to version 1013 and when I noticed the APCI steering problem I flashed it back to the original 1011 on the off chance that the new BIOS caused the problem. Think I should bother reflashing it to the newer BIOS again? And yes, I'll be putting 2K or 2K3 once I'm done playing around.

 

[Tannin]

All I can say is good luck!

The basic idea with Windows 98 and ASUS boards is that if you buggerise around ringing changes with the plug & play system for long enough, eventually you will break down its resistance and, having run out of nasty tricks to pull, it will give up and just work. Once it does, it will usually be trouble-free for a good long while. But they never give in easily, you have to outlast the bastards.

I find that a liberal application of the appropriate technical terms helps a lot. I mostly use "pox-ridden", "moronic", and "effing ASUS sh*t", but doubtless as a good New York boy you will have discovered other terms of your own invention that work just as well. Try to avoid resorting to the precision impact adjustment tool.

Most of all, seriously consider going straight to Windows XP or 2000. You just might save yourself a lot of grief that way.

 

[Fushigi]

I second the motion to give up on W98. If it's not your goal to run it, why bother? It sounds like the hardware is all fine but the software (OS & drivers) isn't adequate or is just too outdated. The obvious solution is to move on to an OS which better supports the board and has bug-free or at least lo-bug (like lo-cal) drivers for your hardware.

2000 and XP, while on the NT kernel, are not such a foreign creatures that you won't be functional. Some things are re-arranged since MS has to do this every release to make people think it's new code, but you'll adapt in no time.

If you want a radical departure, go Linux.

BTW, if you have to buy the OS, buy the OEM version of XP. Then install either 2000 or XP; whichever you want. The OS license, last I checked, is good for previous releases. I've found BuyCheapSoftware to be pretty reasonable.

 

[time]

JTR, I'd just like to say that I think you're either courageous or crazy.

I pretty much agree with what Tannin said. A couple of tips:

• If the Asus BIOS doesn't include an explicit option to reset the PnP data, clear the CMOS.
• BIOS updates are usually to support newer stuff - not ancient - so I seriously doubt that updating will help.
• In my experience, you can't just change graphics cards (and drivers) half a dozen times and expect Win9x to keep working. Each driver should be fully uninstalled (followed by a reboot) before installing the next. If you want Plug 'n Play that (mostly) works, you need Win2k or its descendants.
• VGA default mode is limited to 16 colors by design.
• Display drivers are notorious. In general, the hardware is released to the public 12 months before stable drivers are available, so it usually pays to grab what's on the vendor's website rather than use the one on the bundled CD. In this case, if you haven't already done so, download the latest (2004) chipset and graphics drivers from nvidia.com.

Good luck!

 

[Mercutio]

I'd like to say that before I mailed out that board + CPU, I gave it a nice 24ish-hour burn-in with my default nvidia-chipset sysprep image. I know all the hardware was working at that time. I tested with XP, however. I have no idea how a nforce2 acts when Win98 is forced upon it.

 

[Mercutio]

Also, that kind of crap more-or-less matches my expectations and experiences of dealing with nvidia graphics cards, now that I think about it.

 

[timwhit]

All I can tell you about that graphics card is that it worked when I was using it. You probably noticed that the fan was replaced with a different one. I haven't used it in a good while though.

 

[Bozo]

Trying to install an eight year old DOS based operating system on current hardware is just asking for trouble.
Even Win2K is 6 years old.
Most likely, XP will load and run fine, but it too will need driver updates.

Bozo :mrgrn:

 

[timwhit]

I also would agree that you should not bother with Windows 98. I think you are in a losing battle.

 

[Explorer]

Something of importance here:

Check to make sure you have ACPI disabled for Windows 98.

If you plan on installing Win2K, Win2K3, or WinXP, you definitely want to enable ACPI. In fact, you want to enable ACPI before you begin to load Win2K, Win2K3, or WinXP so that the installer will sense that ACPI is enabled and perform the correct installation of the operating system. Also disable APM.

You enable and disable ACPI in you mobo's BIOS. Same thing with APM.

 

[jtr1962]

Check to make sure you have ACPI disabled for Windows 98.

If you plan on installing Win2K, Win2K3, or WinXP, you definitely want to enable ACPI. In fact, you want to enable ACPI before you begin to load Win2K, Win2K3, or WinXP so that the installer will sense that ACPI is enabled and perform the correct installation of the operating system. Also disable APM.

You enable and disable ACPI in you mobo's BIOS. Same thing with APM.

Thank you for answering my next question before I asked it. :thumbright: Yes, I did see ACPI enable/disable in the BIOS and left it at the default (enabled). That probably caused my problems since I'm guessing Win98 doesn't know how to deal with ACPI. In any case I did a fresh install of '98 after clearing the CMOS. Everything is working again except >16 color settings on the graphics card, so evidently nothing is broke except crappy Windows. I'm ditching any notion of using '98 with this machine at this point. Not worth the aggravation, and the next versions of any software I'm using probably will require something better anyway.

 

[jtr1962]

All I can tell you about that graphics card is that it worked when I was using it. You probably noticed that the fan was replaced with a different one. I haven't used it in a good while though.

Playing around some more I found that the graphics card gives all the high color VESA modes in DOS just fine. Obviously nothing wrong with it then. As I said in my previous post '98 is the problem. Yes, I'm taking everyone's suggestion about forgetting '98 on this machine.

I have no idea how a nforce2 acts when Win98 is forced upon it.

Understating it a bit, they don't mix well.

Also, that kind of crap more-or-less matches my expectations and experiences of dealing with nvidia graphics cards, now that I think about it.

Somehow I think everyone here just knew you would mention that. :mrgrn:

Thanks all for the great help, and especially to Merc for the M/B and Tim for graphics card. I'm just dying to see how MS Train Simulator, among other things, runs on this new system.

 

[Mercutio]

Also, Win 98 SE can in fact fully support ACPI from install-time.

setup /p j

To install with ACPI.

 

[jtr1962]

Searching a bit, I found this. Most relevant to my problem is the following:

ACPI active can be the source of problems in Win98SE. Windows 98SE automatically installs in ACPI mode if an ACPI BIOS is detected. Unfortunately, Win98SE does NOT handle ACPI very well and IRQ sharing with this OS is problematic. If USB is sharing its IRQ with IRQ Holder for ACPI Steering and several other devices you will need to install the OS in APM mode as outlined below.

Emphasis mine. That's exactly what my system is doing. In fact, the problems seemed to start once I installed the motherboard drivers for the USB ports now that I think about it. The article also confirms what Merc wrote above adding switches to the setup command.

 

[paugie]

I remember the time when I stayed up 4 nights in a row trying to get a glitch free Win98 install. Of course that was more than 5 years ago.

oh, and the times I stayed up 3 nights and the times I stayed up 2 nights...

I think it was a celeron 400 on a Tomato lx motherboard. I am hyperventilating. Glass of water please, quick!

 

[mubs]

Sheesh. My daughter had an old PC she uses for gaming (kiddie stuff). She recently got a Dell P4 hand me down which I set up for her, migrated W98 and installed Dell's OEM XP as a dual boot. XP works flawlessly on it, but a once stable W98 SE (on the old m/c) keeps crashing. I hadn't had the time or energy to figure it out, but this thread has been very illuminating. Since it's a dual boot, I have to figure how to handle the settings. Thanks folks.

 

[jtr1962]

Well, I managed to install Win 98 with the setup /p i switches (which disables ACPI) mentioned in that article and system information tells me I have no problem devices. However, the video problem still exists. Looking in device manager-pci bus it said IRQ steering disabled, IRQ table errors. I suspect this is the root of the problem, and it would exist whatever OS I was using. Now how do I fix IRQ table errors? Nothing in the BIOS to clear out the IRQ table. I tried clearing the CMOS a few times to no avail. I suspect this happened when I had swapped a few video cards in and out as mentioned in the first post. The system probably was assigning IRQs like crazy and finally just got all mixed up. Regardless of how it happened, it needs to be fixed but I haven't come across any info online about how to do so. No jumpers or anything else on the board for that except one to clear the CMOS. If the IRQ table is held in flash RAM then clearing the CMOS won't work. I'm guessing there's software someplace to do this (obviously motherboard specific).

BTW, ACPI can be enabled and disabled in Win98 via registry lines without doing a full reinstall. See here (method 2).

 

[mubs]

Looking in device manager-pci bus it said IRQ steering disabled, IRQ table errors. I suspect this is the root of the problem, and it would exist whatever OS I was using.

Actually, no. NT class operating systems (NT, 2000, XP) don't use the BIOS at all, but manage resources and hardware themselves. That's one reason many of the earlier posts urged you to use one of those.

The best you can do with the BIOS for W98 is to clear CMOS and/or reset BIOS settings to default. Make sure you power off between doing this and installing W98. A more radical option is to unplug power and remove the CMOS button battery for a few minutes. Guaranteed to clean-up your BIOS!

One of the suggestions in an earlier post is worth repeating; move PCI cards around. The motherboard manual should tell you which PCI slots share resources. Try not to use so many PCI cards that they have to share resources.

It's not clear if you reinstalled W98 from scratch on a formatted drive. Since things seem to be so buggered up, either reinstall W98 from scratch, or rename the the hardware profile to something like jtr1 and reboot. This will force W98 to redetect all hardware and create a new hardware profile.

W98 is a real PITA. Sorry I can't be more specific.

 

[jtr1962]

One of the suggestions in an earlier post is worth repeating; move PCI cards around. The motherboard manual should tell you which PCI slots share resources. Try not to use so many PCI cards that they have to share resources.

I didn't have any PCI cards in at all when I noticed the problem, just the AGP graphics adaptor. I added my Promise controller to slot 3, it detected just fine, and everything else was otherwise the same. All the integrated peripherals work just fine. The problem is the graphics card. I'm beginning to suspect it needs its own IRQ but there are no BIOS options for this, and the BIOS seems to insist that it share an IRQ with something else every though two IRQs are currently free. Can the newer versions of Windows force the graphics adaptor on its own IRQ? It probably won't work otherwise regardless of operation system.

It's not clear if you reinstalled W98 from scratch on a formatted drive.

I deleted the Windows folder from DOS before every clean install. In essence it's the same as putting Windows on a freshly formatted partition.

I'll try the unplugging and removing the CMOS battery route. I want to get the motherboard unscrewed up before attempting to install a new OS since I would have no way of knowing if any problems I encounter are from the new OS or the motherboard.

 

[mubs]

The AGP slot shares the IRQ with one or more PCI slots; make sure the Promise isn't sitting in one of those.

As I said, W2k & XP don't use the BIOS and will not have a problem with resources. No need to worry on that score. My Penium-3 BX motherboard has AGP + 5 PCI slots, and every one of those slots is used (6 cards total), no problems at all, with W2k.

If you're going to dump W98 anyway, I suggest you don't waste your time but reset the BIOS and proceed with installing W2k or XP.

 

[jtr1962]

The AGP slot shares the IRQ with one or more PCI slots; make sure the Promise isn't sitting in one of those.

No, it's not sharing the IRQ with the AGP slot. As I said, I had this problem even with no cards.

If you're going to dump W98 anyway, I suggest you don't waste your time but reset the BIOS and proceed with installing W2k or XP.

You're right, but I want to make sure the motherboard has no issues before I do. Right now I tried a few known good PCI graphics adaptors and the system wouldn't even POST whereas before it did. Evidently something is wrong. I'm afraid I'll load a new OS and still have the exact same problem. BTW, I tried disabling every integrated peripheral so that the graphics card had its own IRQ. Same problem-nothing over 16 colors works. Bottom line is I need a way to restore the board to its original state. Removing the battery for 10 minutes with the machine unplugged didn't do the trick. Might I need to leave it overnight, or is the interrupt table stored in NV RAM as I suspect?

 

[jtr1962]

Success at last! :mrgrn:

I enabled ACPI, added the line ACPIOption=1 in my registry, and followed the remaining steps in that article I linked to a few posts back. The system detected the ACPI BIOS, and went through several reboots installing the needed drivers. Upon one reboot I noticed two instances of PCI bus so I removed the duplicate device not showing a conflict as suggested. The system required several reboots to redetect all my hardware, including the drivers for my graphics adaptor. Upon the final reboot I ended up in 600x800, 16 bit color (finally)!

The only problem in device manager is two instances of DMA controller. I tried to remove the conflicting one, but upon reboot it redetected. Attempts to remove the non-conflicting one resulted in a system lockup. Also, in system information there are ten instances of APCI IRQ holder for PCI steering not working correctly as before. However, I suspect that this is probably because Windows detected too many instances of ACPI IRQ holders. Bottom line-despite the errors mentioned everything works in '98, so it should work even better once I install a later Windows version. In fact, I'm writing this post from the new PC.

Thanks all, and I'll keep everyone posted. It's been a long three days. I'm going to get some sleep and go to Manhattan tomorrow. Might be my last chance this holiday if the MTA goes on strike as threatened.

 

[jtr1962]

To update everyone on what may have caused the problem in the first place, see the last post here.

I have the same problem with Wxp and GeForce 2GTS (Hercules Prophet), (system: ABIT KT7-R, Tbird 900, 768RAM, SBLive When I run any game with uses OpenGL system will crash. I am unable to play divx or mpeg movies, when it initializes overlay mode it will crash.

Now remember when I mentioned that my problems first started when I went to the overlay setup tab for the Hercules card. The system crashed, and that basically screwed up everything, including the IRQ tables. Now that it's working like before, I'm not bothering to go to the overlay adjustment but I notice the same symptoms as described above. Movies, 3D games, and even some web sites cause a blue screen fault in the file nvcore.vxd. In short, it seems like my problem all along is caused by a video card driver issue. If the 2K/XP drivers for the card work, then no problem. Worst case if they don't, I'll just purchase a new video card. BTW, I'm using the latest set of drivers for the card.

 

[jtr1962]

Playing around a bit more I found that 100% of my problems were related to the graphics card driver (I suspect this is why Merc finds so many issues with nvidia cards). The most recent version of the Win9x drivers caused the crashes which trashed the IRQ tables, and I wasn't able to play 3D games or watch movies even once I got my high-color modes back. Yesterday I put in earlier versions of the drivers. Everything works fine in '98, including games and movies. When I install 2003 or XP I'll just have to try the drivers one at a time until I find one which works. I probably would have had the exact same problem regardless of OS.

When I'm less busy I'll set the system up in its final configuration. At least it's a fully functional Windows 98 machine at this point. I'm still flabbergasted that a bad set of graphics card drivers can so thoroughly screw a machine up to the point that repeated OS reinstalls couldn't fix it.