Motherboard and software

[Guest]

Hi, I upgraded my motherboard, CPU, and memory. Went from ECS K7S5A to ECS N2U400-A. Both have on board LAN. My old board had an SIS chipset and the new one is N-Videa. I read the various posts about uninstalling the old motherboard drivers but have been unable to do so. Particularly, in device manager my old SIS-900 ethernet driver will not allow me to uninstall it because it says it may be needed for booting. Additionally, system drivers for nic and agp remain and in event viewer are listed as errors in boot devices that fail to load. When I've downloaded the XP critical updates my system shuts down upon rebooting by itself and the only way I can get back online is to perform another repair installation. I figure it's most likely from driver conflicts associated with this. How can I remove all software and drivers from the old motherboard if I can't use device manager to do so and it's no longer appearing in add-remove hardware? Thanks

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Greetings --

Normally, and assuming a retail license (many OEM licenses are not
transferable to a new motherboard), unless the new motherboard is
virtually identical (same chipset, same IDE controllers, same BIOS
version, etc.) to the one on which the WinXP installation
was originally performed, you'll need to perform a repair (a.k.a.
in-place upgrade) installation, at the very least:

How to Perform an In-Place Upgrade of Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/directory/article.asp?ID=KB;EN-US;Q315341

As always when undertaking such a significant change, back up any
important data before starting.

This will also require re-activation, unless you have a Volume
Licensed version of WinXP Pro installed. If it's been more than 120
days since you last activated that specific Product Key, you'll most
likely be able to activate via the internet without problem. If it's
been less, you might have to make a 5 minute phone call.


Bruce Chambers
--
Help us help you:



You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on
having both at once. - RAH

Hi, I upgraded my motherboard, CPU, and memory. Went from ECS K7S5A

to ECS N2U400-A. Both have on board LAN. My old board had an SIS
chipset and the new one is N-Videa. I read the various posts about
uninstalling the old motherboard drivers but have been unable to do
so. Particularly, in device manager my old SIS-900 ethernet driver
will not allow me to uninstall it because it says it may be needed for
booting. Additionally, system drivers for nic and agp remain and in
event viewer are listed as errors in boot devices that fail to load.
When I've downloaded the XP critical updates my system shuts down upon
rebooting by itself and the only way I can get back online is to
perform another repair installation. I figure it's most likely from
driver conflicts associated with this. How can I remove all software
and drivers from the old motherboard if I can't use device manager to
do so and it's no longer appearing in add-remove hardware? Thanks

 

[Guest]

Bruce, I said I've performed the repair on more than one occassion now. That's not my problem. The problem is my old software and drivers remain somehow lodged in the boot files and in Device Manager I find them when clicking on show hidden devices. In fact the IRQ's seem very odd to me for my newly installed mobo. For instance the N-Vidia network adapter is listed as a PCI device with an IRQ of 21. My graphics card is in an AGP slot but is listed as a PCI with IRQ 19 and my on-board sound is listed as PCI and IRQ 22. These appear to be wrong to me. I still have a SIS-900 based network adapter listed although I no longer have an SIS chipset. My old motherboard had that. Device Manager will not uninstall it. In my driver cache I have sisnic.sys and sisagp.sys drivers and do not have an SIS chipset now. I have errors which read these system drivers failed to load. I have all sorts of errors in COM sections which state failed to fire. What I'm asking is how do I get rid of my old software and drivers if XP won't allow me to do it through Device manager or Add/Remove hardware. If I shut down my computer I find that the system will keep shutting itself off once I restart it and I'll have to do another repair install to get back to the internet just to find these types of answers. Thanks, Bruce.

 

[Guest]

Bruce, One more thing...the computer is a stand alone work station. The network adapters allow me to access the internet via DSL. There is no hardware based ethernet adapter added to the motherboard, it's an on-board LAN. I have an external modem and use a PPPoE software WAN miniport adapter to access my ISP. The only add on board on my MoBo right now is the graphics card mentioned earlier with the IRQ 19. These settings seem very odd to me but were all applied by XP PnP.

 

[Cari \(MS MVP\)]

Check BIOS settings.... Plug and Play Aware O/S should be set to DISABLED,
ACPI to ENABLED.

One thing you might want to try; disable onboard LAN in the BIOS and see if
XP now removes the incorrect LAN drivers. If it looks like it has done so,
turn off, re-enable LAN in the BIOS and see what XP now finds.

And you have installed the motherboard drivers haven't you?
--
Cari (MS-MVP Windows Client - Printing, Imaging & Hardware)
www.coribright.com

Bruce, I said I've performed the repair on more than one occassion now.

That's not my problem. The problem is my old software and drivers remain
somehow lodged in the boot files and in Device Manager I find them when
clicking on show hidden devices. In fact the IRQ's seem very odd to me for
my newly installed mobo. For instance the N-Vidia network adapter is listed
as a PCI device with an IRQ of 21. My graphics card is in an AGP slot but is
listed as a PCI with IRQ 19 and my on-board sound is listed as PCI and IRQ
22. These appear to be wrong to me. I still have a SIS-900 based network
adapter listed although I no longer have an SIS chipset. My old motherboard
had that. Device Manager will not uninstall it. In my driver cache I have
sisnic.sys and sisagp.sys drivers and do not have an SIS chipset now. I have
errors which read these system drivers failed to load. I have all sorts of
errors in COM sections which state failed to fire. What I'm asking is how do
I get rid of my old software and drivers if XP won't allow me to do it
through Device manager or Add/Remove hardware. If I shut down my computer I
find that the system will keep shutting itself off once I restart it and
I'll have to do another repair install to get back to the internet just to
find these types of answers. Thanks, Bruce.

 

[Guest]

Cari, Thanks for the advice. I think I did try the various settings you suggested but maybe not at the same time. Been attempting to fix this for three days now and am not sure what I've done now. And, yes I did install the new software for the motherboard. These drivers also appear in device manager, in the readings I've specified above, and that's why I feel there are conlicts which are causing my computer to shut itself down after I restart it. I'd just like to get rid of the stuff I don't need. The problem is if I restart it and it shuts itself down, when I restart it in safe mode the device manager gives an error code of 711 which doesn't allow me to uninstall either.

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Greetings --

Sorry I missed the fact that you had tried repair installations.
One thing I can think of at the moment, besides what Cari's already
suggested, would be trying to "disable" the phantom devices within
Device Manager and seeing what happens. You could also try manually
deleted the old driver files from the hard drive and editing the
registry to remove any references to them, but this could prove to be
a daunting task.

If none of that helps, as much as I hate to say it, this may be
one of those times when it might be better to back up your data and
start fresh, with a clean installation of WinXP. It basically boils
down top how much time and effort you want to put into salvaging your
current installation.


Bruce Chambers
--
Help us help you:



You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on
having both at once. - RAH

Bruce, I said I've performed the repair on more than one occassion

now. That's not my problem. The problem is my old software and drivers
remain somehow lodged in the boot files and in Device Manager I find
them when clicking on show hidden devices. In fact the IRQ's seem very
odd to me for my newly installed mobo. For instance the N-Vidia
network adapter is listed as a PCI device with an IRQ of 21. My
graphics card is in an AGP slot but is listed as a PCI with IRQ 19 and
my on-board sound is listed as PCI and IRQ 22. These appear to be
wrong to me. I still have a SIS-900 based network adapter listed
although I no longer have an SIS chipset. My old motherboard had that.
Device Manager will not uninstall it. In my driver cache I have
sisnic.sys and sisagp.sys drivers and do not have an SIS chipset now.
I have errors which read these system drivers failed to load. I have
all sorts of errors in COM sections which state failed to fire. What
I'm asking is how do I get rid of my old software and drivers if XP
won't allow me to do it through Device manager or Add/Remove hardware.
If I shut down my computer I find that the system will keep shutting
itself off once I restart it and I'll have to do another repair
install to get back to the internet just to find these types of
answers. Thanks, Bruce.

 

[Guest]

Bruce, I understand what you mean when you say as much as I hate to say it. That's been my problem all along. I have been hoping to avoid doing that. I'm going to try a couple of more situations and solutions prior to doing the inevitable. Thanks Bruce.