Asus P5S800-VM Problem

[Ed]

Thank you for reading my post.

I have built a good many systems in the past but this is the first barebones
pc I've ever purchased. It's called the Asus Vintage PE1. It has onboard
video which I'm using, an 80 gb hd, a Liteon16X DVD/RW and a floppy drive.
The cpu is LGA775 Celeron D.

The Windows XP Pro (confirmed good by using on other systems) spins up and
the screen says: Setup is inspecting your computer hardware configuration.
The screen stays black and there is no further activity. So I thought ok I
need to run the support cd and install the sis drivers and other motherboard
devices. Just like the WXP cd, it does boot but it goes to a three choice
menu: 1= Make SIS raid driver disk 2= Format floppy drive 3= Freedos command
prompt. If I go to the FreeDos choice I can look at the cd directory no
problem. I also discovered that a pseudo drive call x drive has been created
and contains the BIN folder and assetup.exe was in that folder so I thought
ah ha! Unfortunately I get the message that I can't run this program from
the dos prompt. So now what do I do?
Regards
Ed

 

[Paul]

Thank you for reading my post.

I have built a good many systems in the past but this is the first barebones
pc I've ever purchased. It's called the Asus Vintage PE1. It has onboard
video which I'm using, an 80 gb hd, a Liteon16X DVD/RW and a floppy drive.
The cpu is LGA775 Celeron D.

The Windows XP Pro (confirmed good by using on other systems) spins up and
the screen says: Setup is inspecting your computer hardware configuration.
The screen stays black and there is no further activity. So I thought ok I
need to run the support cd and install the sis drivers and other motherboard
devices. Just like the WXP cd, it does boot but it goes to a three choice
menu: 1= Make SIS raid driver disk 2= Format floppy drive 3= Freedos command
prompt. If I go to the FreeDos choice I can look at the cd directory no
problem. I also discovered that a pseudo drive call x drive has been created
and contains the BIN folder and assetup.exe was in that folder so I thought
ah ha! Unfortunately I get the message that I can't run this program from
the dos prompt. So now what do I do?
Regards
Ed

One thing I find curious about the Vintage PE1, is that it uses
a "P5S800-VM" motherboard. The download page lists a couple
of BIOS files for the Vintage PE1, but the release notes are
not indicative of your problem.

http://support.asus.com.tw/download/download_item.aspx?model=Vintage-PE1&type=Latest&SLanguage=en-us

But there is also a P5S800-VM motherboard, available as a separate
product.

http://support.asus.com.tw/download/download_item.aspx?model=P5S800-VM&type=Latest&SLanguage=en-us

The implication is the two motherboards are identical, which they
are not. The Vintage board has a Firewire chip, and the standalone
P5S800-VM motherboard does not. Yet the instructions for upgrading
the BIOS, seem to suggest the same filename for both boards. The
standalone board BIOS has voltage adjustment options, and the
Vintage BIOS doesn't.

The standalone board BIOS release notes are an eye opener. One
of them reads "Fix that it can't install Windows with..." and
another reads "Patch Install windowxp will fail when use Synnex
memory". The release dates of the BIOS, suggest that the
Vintage boards BIOS may not be as up to date as the standalone
boards BIOS.

I think I would phone Asus tech support and ask them what the
situation is on the BIOS files. RMAing that thing would probably
be expensive if you bork the BIOS (probably cost more in shipping
than the value of the product). Personally, I would be tempted
to use the latest standalone P5S800-VM BIOS, but with the
Firewire chip on the board, I don't know if the BIOS would
handle it properly or not. Certainly, judging by the release
notes for the standalone board, it would suggest a BIOS upgrade
to the latest is what you would want to use. The release notes
on the Vintage PE1 download page don't suggest the BIOS has
a history of such problems.

It is downright stupid to give the two motherboards identical
model names. Unless I'm missing something...

Paul

 

[Ed]

Thanks Paul for your response. This took a while but I RMA'd that PE1
Vintage board and wouldn't you know I received the stand-alone version minus
the firewire port. Asus tells me they are unaware of the difference between
the two and I've sent back the replacement so they can see for themselves
and hopefully send me the right one. Thanks again for the help. I'll post
back when Asus explains about the boards that have the same part number but
are different.