A7N8X installation woes - WinXP? (Long)

[Dogbert Dilbert]

Dear All,

I've been struggling to install WinXP Pro-SP1 on a brand-new ASUS
A7N8X.

System: A7N8X deluxe
CPU: Athlon 2600
RAM: 512 Mb PC3200 (from Crucial)
Video card: Radeon 9500 Pro
HDD: 60 Gb fujitsu (I think) set as primary master
CD-DVD-ROM set as secondary slave

I tried assembling the system. POST seems to work OK (at least that's
what the nice lady says), get into the XP boot loader and it
bluescreens with something about the ntldr.

Tried to reboot into safe mode, and again after choosing safe mode, it
bluescreens at Mup.sys.

I try a completely fresh install of XP on a different disk, and while
the install procedure starts ok from the CD, and copies files to the
disk, at the point where it wants to reboot from the HDD it
bluescreens on reboot.

I try a different video card in case there's some AGP problem (a
Geforce 4): same result. I install XP on the new HDD on another
machine (works fine). Put this HDD onto the A7N8X and it bluescreens.

Boot from safemode again fails at Mup.sys. Search internet to find
that in new installs, Win2000 and XP often bluescreen at Mup.sys -
great - this must be the problem! I try ERD commander to switch off
Mup.sys, and while it boots OK from ERD commander and I can inactivate
Mup.sys, when ASUS tries to boot from the HDD it bluescreens somewhere
else.

I've tried changing the BIOS to disable AGP 8-speed, fast writes,
onboard LAN, USB-2 support (all suggested as cures on the newsgroups):
none of this works. Occasionally get reports from the nice lady that
the memory test has failed. Try re-seating the memory in slots 1,2, or
3. Doesn't seem to fix it. I notice that my Athlon chip is reported as
being at 1.26GHz, which isn't what I'd really expected from an Athlon
2600: - WTF?

I get desperate and install Mandrake LINUX onto yet another HDD. This
seems to work OK in text mode, and will boot OK from the HDD but I
can't get Xwindows to run because none of the settings seem compatible
with (either) graphics card. So I have a great machine for running Vi
or emacs.

I'm now close to the point where I try to send this board back and
never buy an ASUS board again. I'm not exactly a novice at system
construction, but this has been possible the most dismal experience
I've had yet.

Any ideas gratefully received. I'm at the stage where I can't even
decide if it's a mobo problem, an AGP problem, a memory problem, or
whether there's a chip problem.

TIA

Dogbertd

 

[Gordon Freeman]

L'incidente di Black Mesa e' stato nulla in confronto ai danni causati

Any ideas gratefully received. I'm at the stage where I can't even
decide if it's a mobo problem, an AGP problem, a memory problem, or
whether there's a chip problem.

can't remember if 2600+ has 133 fsb or 166. However you should try to
set fsb and ram at the same speed in "Chipset Advanced Features" in
bios: choose the right fsb for you cpu, set multiplier on "Auto" and
"Memory Speed" to "100%" (=of fsb). Try again then.
This mobo doesn't like asynchronous fsb/ram speed.


Hope this can help.
Bye!

 

[Paul]

Dear All,

I've been struggling to install WinXP Pro-SP1 on a brand-new ASUS
A7N8X.

System: A7N8X deluxe
CPU: Athlon 2600
RAM: 512 Mb PC3200 (from Crucial)
Video card: Radeon 9500 Pro
HDD: 60 Gb fujitsu (I think) set as primary master
CD-DVD-ROM set as secondary slave

I tried assembling the system. POST seems to work OK (at least that's
what the nice lady says), get into the XP boot loader and it
bluescreens with something about the ntldr.

Tried to reboot into safe mode, and again after choosing safe mode, it
bluescreens at Mup.sys.

TIA

Dogbertd

The very first thing to do with a motherboard using DDR ram, is to
test the memory. If the motherboard will post and the video card will
run in at least 640x480 mode, then get yourself a copy of memtest86 3.0,
from www.memtest86.com . This is a free program, and when executed
on another computer, the program will prepare a magic boot floppy
for you. The boot floppy doesn't contain a file system, and is
just a loadable memory test program, ready to run the screen in text
mode at 640x480. Just plug the newly prepared floppy into the floppy
drive on the new machine and boot.

The program has the ability to test all of memory, by "moving out of
the way". It has some basic tests (that test the memory) and some
extended tests (that also help exercise the memory bus terminations
and termination power). If you can run some of these tests overnight
without seeing any errors, then your memory is probably OK.

If you don't test the memory first, then a BSOD seen in the OS is
meaningless, because you don't know if the problem is hardware
or software. Running memtest86 helps identify where the problem
might be. If the memory is throwing errors, you can try changing
clock rates or timing, or just return the memory to your vendor.

Another contributor could be your power supply. If you are using the
power supply from an older system, it might be too small.

HTH,
Paul

 

[Corran Horn]

The very first thing to do with a motherboard using DDR ram, is to
test the memory. If the motherboard will post and the video card will
run in at least 640x480 mode, then get yourself a copy of memtest86 3.0,
from www.memtest86.com . This is a free program, and when executed
on another computer, the program will prepare a magic boot floppy
for you. The boot floppy doesn't contain a file system, and is
just a loadable memory test program, ready to run the screen in text
mode at 640x480. Just plug the newly prepared floppy into the floppy
drive on the new machine and boot.

The program has the ability to test all of memory, by "moving out of
the way". It has some basic tests (that test the memory) and some
extended tests (that also help exercise the memory bus terminations
and termination power). If you can run some of these tests overnight
without seeing any errors, then your memory is probably OK.

If you don't test the memory first, then a BSOD seen in the OS is
meaningless, because you don't know if the problem is hardware
or software. Running memtest86 helps identify where the problem
might be. If the memory is throwing errors, you can try changing
clock rates or timing, or just return the memory to your vendor.

Another contributor could be your power supply. If you are using the
power supply from an older system, it might be too small.

HTH,
Paul

I can confirm Paul's suggestion. I too had a no-name strip of PC2700 memory
(128 Mb) (while I was waiting for my corsair memory to be delivered), and
when I tried to install WinXP, I got errors while copying the files from
the WinXP-cd's to my HDD (similar to DogbertD), and if I managed to get it
installed (I tried installing it approximately 10 times), I received BSOD's
all over the place.

I then ran memtest86, and voila: memory errors galore...

Thus, check your memory before you change anything, as I think you will
find your problem there.

Best of luck!

CH

 

[Dogbert Dilbert]

I can confirm Paul's suggestion. I too had a no-name strip of PC2700 memory
(128 Mb) (while I was waiting for my corsair memory to be delivered), and
when I tried to install WinXP, I got errors while copying the files from
the WinXP-cd's to my HDD (similar to DogbertD), and if I managed to get it
installed (I tried installing it approximately 10 times), I received BSOD's
all over the place.

I then ran memtest86, and voila: memory errors galore...

Thus, check your memory before you change anything, as I think you will
find your problem there.

Best of luck!

CH

Thanks to all responders: I'll certainly run Memtest tonight, although
I'd have thought that a serious memory problem would not have allowed
a boot into LINUX (albeit not in Xwindows) or ERD commander, however
this is certainly one more thing to try.

Thanks!

Dogbertd

 

[Mike Gorman]

If the system is reporting as a 1200 then you've got your bios settings set
up wrong. Perhaps you could post them here.