Forum Home
Press F1
Thread ID: 9294	2001-05-18 14:33:00	Strange Windows 98 install problem	Guest (0)	Press F1

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
12809	2001-05-18 14:33:00	Recently I have built as few PC's for friends based on the Asus CUSL2-C motherboard which uses the Intel 815EP chipset and have found them to be excellent systems although setting them up can be tricky because Win 98 does not have the correct drivers for all the stuff in the System Devices part of the Device manager for this motherboard as instead of using a North and South Bridge it uses an MCH controller chip and another new controller chip. Those of you that understand what I am going on about are the people I need to input some suggestions (I have a sneaking suspicion the above fact could be involved in some way) as to what is going wrong on a machine I did not build myself in a configuration very similar to 3 others I built recently that all work fine. Heres what is wrong. First let me say that I have worked with this machine when it was running really well a few days ago. However since then the vidcard was removed then reinstalled and it has not worked correctly since. I didn't do it so am relying on the person who did do it for the following info. He took the card out then put it back in 6 hours later and the machine would not boot fully ending up with just the windows desktop wallpaper and the cursor and none of the rest of the windows desktop. It booted into Safe mode alright so I had him check all the obvious stuff and some of the obscure stuff (drivers, system file checker, registry, win system files etc etc) then after finding nothing wrong had him install new drivers for the vidcard, disable virus protection in BIOS, check hardware connections, disable and remove hardware etc - all the standard sort of stuff to fix what appeared to be a graphics/windows problem of some sort. I had him strip the PC back to basics, roll back DirectX then upgrade, disable everything except systray in startup, set the BIOS to defaults and on and on. Still no joy so I told him to reinstall Windows after Fdisking the MBR and the whole drive and reformatting. He tried to reinstall 6 times in the next few hours and despite reformats etc the install always hangs at the 11 minutes to go mark when detecting Plug and Play devices. At this stage I told him to bring it to me as I have a spare vidcard and some drives etc and its just plain easier when your sitting at the PC to actually fault find on the system. I spent 6 hours tonight trying more and more obscure things to get this thing going and I am afraid its got me beat. I tried installing both 98 and 98SE and no matter what I did to the Bios (I have not attempted to flash the Bios yet but there are no references to this problem on the Asus sites worldwide) and the Hardware (new vidcard, new CDRom drive, checked all jumpers on every piece of hardware that has them) I could not get past the same point in the install. I can boot into Safe mode but apart from all the system device drivers being present that windows uses as defaults (until these are all updated off the Asus motherboard disk - after windows is installed!) in the Device Manager there are no drivers for any of the other devices in the machine. Other devices are listed but when you open the + beside them theres nothing there at all? I can set startup stuff in System Config Utility but if I try to get windows to find devices it wants to reboot. Everything I try leads to reboot then it reboots to the background on the default Win98 install routine (the ugly 640x480 blue!) with a moveable cursor and nothing else. I have re Fdisked and formatted etc etc. I have gone round and round in circles long enough and have given up. The only references on Microsofts site refer to hardware not present in this system and software that cannot be installed as windows does not actually exist. There is a Fatal Exception 06 at a memory address error message when I Ctl-Alt-Del out of the empty background colour sometimes!? Most of the 50 links I checked about this error message had to do with it appearing after Windows is installed in relation to various bits of hardware (printers, scanners etc) and the odd bit of software. Microsoft talk about it in relation to Windows 98 installs and it being a background virus scanner and thats it. The only virus scanner until I actually get windows onto the machine is the Bios based one and I have disabled that in the Bios. Please throw any old wild idea at me. I may just have tried some of them but there are a lot of very experienced people around and I really need some new directions. Is it possible to do a fully manual install of Windows 98SE piece by piece drivers and all from Dos? As I said I have successfully built 3 very similar setups recently and while I had problems they were quite easy to handle. This one isn't and I do not actually have any idea at all after hours and hours of fiddling around why its not. Thanks for any ideas I can try at all. 1 Ghz P3, Asus geforce 256 AGP and Voodoo 3 3000 seperately, 256mb PC133 ram, standard floppy, 12x Asus DVD drive and 8x IBM CDrom seperately, brand new 20 gig HDD and running at standard speeds i.e. not overclocked.	Guest (0)
12810	2001-05-18 20:41:00	Hello John. A couple of things worth trying at this stage >> Firstly, I would try swapping the Video card for another and install the problem one into another machine (it is quite possible your friend has damaged it when trying to remove or reinstall it)if it runs OK in the other machine obviously you then know the problem does not lie with that component. Secondly, I would have a look at the ram (quite often ram can be damaged, if correct procedures are not carried out during installs/reinstalls and it is very common for you not to receive any specific error messages (your machine just runs like a dog or just won't load the more intensive pieces of hardware)hence your stuck in safe mode,or just can't finish loading Windows. Thirdly while you have the ram out to swap for another known good piece, if the system still performs badly try installing the ram into a different dimm slot (sometimes, and don't ask me why, the motherboard suddenly decides, after an upgrade or hardware reconfiguration that it needs the ram installed into a different dimm slot to run properly) Just a few quick things that will at least establish no damage has occured within them, if you still have no joy repost and I will put my thinking cap back on. Alan	Guest (0)
12811	2001-05-19 12:46:00	i had the same problem u have b4...this is my suggestion...get the latest BIOS version of the motherboard, meaning to say flash it. Now before flashing it,some motherboards needs to be resetted first before flashing,just check the motherboard manual, but resetting it wont hurt it,aint it..... As for the win98se detecting plug n play phase..if u still have problems with that..try to move the jumpers of the motherboard for CPU model,Frequency, clock multiplier and FSB(front side bus) and so on...just be sure u know what u are doing..so u wont damage the CPU...i had the same problem u had,on a different motherboard,but we remedied it through my first and second suggestion i told you. i hope that helps you. Jim Q. Comp.Techinician	Guest (0)
12812	2001-05-19 14:24:00	It's been a while since I last built a system with a CUSL2 board, but I can't remember ever having any problems installing Windows. I would suspect the video card has been damaged, but it could be something else, eg. RAM. Check it out by fitting one piece at a time. If it's ok then try: Fdisk and fdisk /mbr, then clear CMOS using the board jumper (this should eliminate any virus infection). In BIOS: disable advanced power management, check that it is set to initiate an AGP slot first and that the RAM apature size is equal to 256. Reinstall windows. Note: if Windows hangs during the install, do not reboot using CTRL-ALT-DEL as this will disable the Windows Safe Recovery mode. If you still can't install Windows, remove/disconnect all hardware that is not required as part of the install and try again. (You could even copy all the cab files to the hard drive first so the CD-ROM can be disconnected). If you can boot into Safe Mode, I assume you have already tried to fault find devices and drivers using msconfig.exe. It is also worth noting that some video cards will not install correctly unless the video adaptor is set to standard VGA and the computer rebooted prior to attempting installation of the correct video driver .	Guest (0)
12813	2001-05-22 22:36:00	Thank You guys for the suggestions. I had my friend take the machine to a tech with tools in the end and it was discovered that the fault is in the motherboard. I suspect my friend may have damaged the board somehow without realising it. Thanks for the input though as all your suggestions have now been added to my fault finding routines for future use. Cheers John	Guest (0)
1