New Mother Board Installation

[SeaWolf]

My mother board died and I had to replace it with a new one...

The new Mobo is a warrantee replacement and its the exact same board that I
had on this system to start with a ASUS P4PE...

When I installed the new board and fired the system up I found that I no
longer have any sound, no printer and no USB ports. Everything else works...

From all indications the computer says that there is no sound device on my
system even though the sound device is built into the mother board. The
somputer beeps with its PC speaker just like a system that had no sound
device... (Checked Bios! OK)

My printer simply doesn't work, no communications it seems... My new HP
printer uses USB ports... None of the USB ports seem to be doing anything...
All my drivers seem to be in place so I'm not sure what's up..

What I'm wondering is if XP might have some kind of security issue with the
fact I've replaced a major component?

Any ideas please!!! I know very little about XP so your help would be
appreciated...

Even a book on "How to troubleshoot Windows XP might be helpful... I'm not
sure what I need to do...

Asus seems to think the new board they send me wasn't any good so they are
going to send me another and we will try again...

It should be noted that I'm not reloading everything. The Mother board I'm
using is the exact same make and model as the board I replaced and I real
don't want to have to reload all this, it would take forever!!!

Any ideas? Thanks again for your help!!!

 

[Merlin]

Sounds like a bad board to me. I replaced a MB on one of my computers a
couple of months ago with an exact replacement and everyhing worked
perfectly. I didn't even have to re-activate.

 

[compsalvage_cscs]

Suggest scanning for hardware changes in the device manager window, by
right clicking on your computer's name.

All the devices you described have been reassigned to alternate
resources.

If that does not work follow Merlin's advise and request a replacement
MB.

 

[Bob Harris]

The problems should not be related to XP. If a product activation screen
pops-up, that would be XP, and is nothing to worry about, if it happens.

As for the other things, did you check the current BIOS settings versus
those in the old motherboard, which I hope that you wrote down or captured
via a digital camera? If not, realize that the motherboard might have (1) a
newer BIOS, (2) different default settings, (3) might be some variation of
the original board and not a one-for-one replacement.

First check the BIOS revision. Then check the ASUS support site for the
latest released revision. Avoid beta version, unless explicitly instructed
to use one by some expert. Install the latest, if not already installed.

Second, enter the BIOS setup and review all settings, with the motherboard
manual in hand. Check that the onboard sound card is either enabled or
auto. (I use auto on my ASUS P4S8X.) Ditto for USB. and maybe separately
for USB 2.0. If the printer is USB, enabling USB should fix that. If it is
parallel port, look for a setting about parallel port mode. I use ECP+EPP.

Third, download the latest drivers for all the onboard devices. If a device
is not recognized or does not work right, install the latest driver. If it
works OK, leave it alone !

Fourth, do an XP update. That can sometimes find drivers for hardware.
Yes, in theory you have them already, but there is a chance that something
is not 100% the same about the motherboard.

Fifth, look for the non-working devices in the device manager. If they are
listed, XP senses them. Try uninstalling them from the device manager, one
at a time, and then asking the device manager to detect new hardware. This
can sometimes fix a problem device (like sound or USB).

Finally, if the above fails, try an alternative operating system for a test.
By this I mean get a copy of a self-contained LINUX CD, such as KNOPPIX, use
it to boot the PC, and see what hardware is recognized. If LINUX sees the
hardware, but XP does not, consider a repair installation of XP, which
should re-detect all hardware.

 

[SeaWolf]

The problems should not be related to XP. If a product activation
screen pops-up, that would be XP, and is nothing to worry about, if
it happens.

OK!!!

As for the other things, did you check the current BIOS settings
versus those in the old motherboard, which I hope that you wrote down
or captured via a digital camera? If not, realize that the
motherboard might have (1) a newer BIOS, (2) different default
settings, (3) might be some variation of the original board and not a
one-for-one replacement.

It looks the same I didn't take a snap shot but I have 18 other machines
like this one I can look at!! So far four of them have failed with bad
mother boards got two up and working by replacing the boards and they just
fired up OK... This machine is a bit different in that there is allot more
programming on it... The other 18 machines are setup with very basic
programming as they are used training purposes only... This computer has all
kinds of stuff on it, three years worth of work... I do have everything
backed up but I'm not even sure how to reload some of this stuff as there is
SO much and some of it is really strange stuff... Much of the problem is
that some of these programs will not even work with SP2 so SP2 isn't loaded
on this machine while all the others computers have it...

You know I LOVE computers and Oh how I HATE them at the same time...

First check the BIOS revision. Then check the ASUS support site for
the latest released revision. Avoid beta version, unless explicitly
instructed to use one by some expert. Install the latest, if not
already installed.

The BIOS seems to be a more updated one then the older boards The old one is
called
a P4PE and the new one is called a P4PE2 but looking that the BIOS I can't
see any differance in them...

Second, enter the BIOS setup and review all settings, with the
motherboard manual in hand. Check that the onboard sound card is
either enabled or auto. (I use auto on my ASUS P4S8X.) Ditto for
USB. and maybe separately for USB 2.0. If the printer is USB,
enabling USB should fix that. If it is parallel port, look for a
setting about parallel port mode. I use ECP+EPP.

OK did this no change printer will not communicate...

Third, download the latest drivers for all the onboard devices. If a
device is not recognized or does not work right, install the latest
driver. If it works OK, leave it alone !

What's strange here is that the computer will not even recognize the sound
driver. It's not seeing any sound device on the computer so it will not load
the driver for it...

Fourth, do an XP update. That can sometimes find drivers for
hardware. Yes, in theory you have them already, but there is a chance
that something is not 100% the same about the motherboard.

ASUS seems to think my MOBO is shot they want me to send it in!!!
They said it should have just fired up with no problems so I think since
its free I might as well go for it... Other people seem to agree as they
have done similar replacements...

Fifth, look for the non-working devices in the device manager. If
they are listed, XP senses them. Try uninstalling them from the
device manager, one at a time, and then asking the device manager to
detect new hardware. This can sometimes fix a problem device (like
sound or USB).

Yes this is what ASUS did on the phone and they said the computer isn't
seeing
sound... or wasn't seeing something it was supposed to be seeing... I'm not
totally
sure what they were looking for...

Finally, if the above fails, try an alternative operating system for
a test. By this I mean get a copy of a self-contained LINUX CD, such
as KNOPPIX, use it to boot the PC, and see what hardware is
recognized. If LINUX sees the hardware, but XP does not, consider a
repair installation of XP, which should re-detect all hardware.

Yes I've been hearing about this REPAIR installation! How do you do that?
I even went out and purchased a very expensive book called " Mastering
Windows XP Professional" and there is nothing in that book about repair
installation. I find "Update Installation" and an installation that starts
everything
over and erases the hard drive. I can NOT erase the hard drive, we would
all die!!!!

I wish I could print this out!

Well since the new replacement is free and the majority of folks seem to
think I
should go for it and I've done what you said and it didn't help I might as
well
replace the MOBO again!!!

Any tips about replacing MOBOs??? You know what when I replaced this one
the first time the computer didn't do anything at all!!! I had to put the
WinXP pro
CD in the the computer read stuff off it then the computer started up!!!
This is interesting
because if I put this hard drive in another computer the computer simply
fires up!!! I'm
thinking that there is something different about this MOBO and that's why it
doesn't work right!!!

Now if the new MOBO doesn't work I'm going to go get a ASUS P4P800S! This is
a different MOBO from the one I'm currently using!!! If I do this do I have
to reload XP on a new hard drive??? (Start Over) Are there any security
issues???

Thanks for you help!!!

 

[SeaWolf]

Did as you said, no difference! I'm going to send the board out tonight!
Thanks!

 

[SeaWolf]

What is re-activate and how is it done? When do you know to do it?
Thanks!