I've inherited a system which is not so old that it shouldn't be possible to get working, then George can take it to Uni next year (he's halfway over the Pacific as I write this - 8 months gap year in NZ!) Asus A7V333, Via KT333 chipset, CPU unknown coz I don't wish to damage it by unpinning the clasps but I think 1.6MHz, 512MB ram. It did have XP installed, but the previous owner "erased" the HD. I'm unsure what that meant - I think a format. Anyway, the BIOS shows a primary master HD OK (Maxtor 6L080J4) and secondary master (CD drive) and secondary slave (DVD drive) but despite reverting to default settings it won't read the OS disc after exiting the BIOS even thought the lights on the drive show up. When I boot up, it will set itself in safe mode because it says on previous boot the system hung for improper settings. I've set it to default BIOS settings and saved, but it always reverts to this safe mode setting, and seems to hang on exiting the BIOS. I tried removing the CMOS battery, waiting 30 mins and putting it back - no good. Any ideas what the problem might be? fiddler
Is it because of that busted CD-ROM drive? Faulty CD-ROM drive always show these kind of symptoms. If not, try doing this - the jumpers in all the drives are set to CS (cable select). Then connect the 80-wire cable to the drives to the board as usual. hope that helps.
Okay, if the PC won't read the CD, it's likely to be a CD-ROM problem. You can confirm by replacing it with another drive and see if it reads. But if you save BIOS settings and it keeps getting reset to default settings, then it's likely the BIOS battery is bust. You will need to change it.
Hey, thanks for all the support guys. I'll post a joke to express my appreciation I tried several different boot priorities, as well as putting the XP CD-rom in the DVD drive instead of the CD drive. No joy. I'll try replacing the CMOS battery. fiddler
Haha.. Saw that. It was hilarious! Hmm.. Can't be a reader problem then. You will have to check your CMOS battery.
Installed a fresh battery (£6!) but no joy. Then thought it could be a driver issue, remembered I had made 6 XP recovery floppies ages ago, so ran them. Good progress. Inserted the "Recovery CD" that came with the system (Evesham Computers) which ran OK, and I split the 80GB HD into 2 partitions, but then it asked for Service Pack 1 CD-Rom, which didn't come with the computer, so it looks like I'll have to get a fresh XP CD. Anyway at least all the components seem to be running OK. Thanks for the suggestions guys. fiddler
Sorry to hear it wasn't the battery. Yeah, what about changing the IDE cable? I've had some CD/DVD drives "die" on me merely because of the cable.
I think it's reading the drives OK guys, because the Evesham Computers XP recovery CD-rom was recognised and it ran the partitioning and format of the HD. I'm going to stop wasting time with their Tech Support and have ordered a new XP with SP2 (£66) to install - no messing about with SP1 SP1a and SP2. I'm confident this will work, and will let you know. fiddler
Thanks for checking up on this thread guys Well, now I just don't know I switched the HD for an old 40GB one that had W98 on it. It booted fine. So I thought maybe I'll try loading XP on to that and see what happens. All started well, CD drive being read OK, so I aborted and put back the original HD. Fine - installed XP off the original Recovery CD from Evesham (now I've got an untouched version of XP SP2 ), put boot order back to FD - HD - CD drive - installed a wireless adapter, d/loaded and installed AVG and ZoneAlarm and began Windows Update, whereupon every time it prompted to Restart, system would close, but then die, and only boot into Windows after several attempts at switching off and on, and then even BIOS wouldn't start sometimes, or would say it was in safe mode because settings might be wrong. Got SP2 installed finally in the end but the whole boot procedure is very flakey. I tried a different cable but no joy (although it's not exactly the same - this was from the W98 machine and has 40 pin holes rather than the 39 plus one blank as the other, but seemed to fit OK)..... now I've just returned after an hour or so leaving it off, plugged back the original cable and it booted up first time into XP - no BIOS safe mode warning or any of that crap. I'll try another reboot after supper - pasta with meat sauce cooked by Olly for us tonight These kids have their uses I suppose - hope you're sowing the right seeds there Adrian fiddler
Would be advisable to go with the newer 40-pin, 80-conductor cables. Many of the older 40-conductor cables are becoming quite flakey. LOL!!! Well, I think I will hold off for now. Kids are EXPENSIVE!
Trying all sorts of different ways of booting - what never works is to turn off and on again pretty fast. The latest successful boot was when I switched off, waited a bit, switched the power on at the back, waited for another 10 mins or so then powered on. But that may have been coincidence. I've been googling a bit though - it seems that the Asus A7V333 doesn't like the AXP1900 (which I've now discovered is the installed CPU) - eg see response no 4 on http://www.rock.computing.net/cpus/wwwboard/forum/1331.html And some think that that these mobos need a healthy power supply - then some think that doesn't help. It's a bit worrying that I get the "Updated ESCD successfully" message - that could be a precursor of the mobo failing altogether, as happened to someone on that discussion board. Maybe I'll try updating the BIOS, something I've never done before because you hear scare stories... Or maybe just get a new mobo. Then that means new CPU, and can I match a mobo to existing RAM....? Ah well, time for a little wine, then bed. fiddler
Hmm.. Yeah, check the capacitors on the motherboard. See if they are bulging.. or even leaking. Oh, don't worry about the Updated ESCD Successfully message. It's not an error message. Ahhh.. Updating the BIOS, IMHO, is always a good idea. I fix many problems just by updating the BIOS. If you need instructions, we have them in this guide here - http://www.techarp.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=93&pgno=0
Checked the capacitors - all the tops seem ok, no discolouration, distortion, and nothing leaking at the board end. Flashed the BIOS v 1005-1007 using the supplied CD-rom software; a very easy job, all on line; I didn't bother with a save to floppy or with Aflash.exe naughty: ). No apparent change in the symptoms. Next thing to try is a more powerful PSU (current is 250W) I guess. Thanks again for the support you guys Hey have look at my amateurish website! Bits of music from much of the family for you to enjoy perhaps. www.milesgolding.com Miles/fiddler
Just as a thought, have you tried deleting all the partitions and then reinstalling again? Sometimes it's the simple things that cause the most problems, some funny little setting here or there. I know it's fairly generic advice, but you could try removing components from the system and replacing them one by one to see if any are faulty. Also, if it's shutting down after a short period of time, could it be possible that it's an overheating problem? Take a look in your BIOS, there should be a hardware monitor in there somewhere.
Thanks jomuj. When I first managed to access the drive I formatted it and made fresh partitions. There's no problem once it's booted properly - there's no shut down issue. That's a good idea to remove hardware and replace one by one. Probably unable to do that for a few days now. BTW I ensured all the fixing points were used - some were empty - in case there was an intermittent shorting out problem or something. fiddler
