Asus A7N8X Deluxe Video Driver problems

[whizbang]

I recently bought a refurbed A7N8X Deluxe. After installation, I installed WinXP on the HD and booted the system. The system POSTs fine, but after Windows loads, the screen displayed blue and black stripes. I launched into safe mode to verify that the video driver wasn't working properly. I reinstalled the video driver and got the system to boot, but as soon as I rebooted, I had the same problem. I pulled a different video card out of another machine and had the same experience, although instead of blue and black stripes, I get the BSOD and a reboot. If I go into safe mode and delete the driver, I can get it to boot once, but it always crashes as soon as the machine is restarted.

Hardware or software problem?? I will try reloading Windows when I get a chance.

 

[mechBgon]

Hmm, "refurbed" could be the answer in a nutshell You installed the motherboard drivers before the video drivers, right?

 

[whizbang]

Motherboard drivers? It is a Rev 2 board, so I updated the bios to C1005. The only non-BIOS driver file I see on Asus' site are for USB 2.0. I downloaded it but haven't installed it yet. Do I need to find drivers for the onboard LAN, sound and firewire and update them?? I see LAN drivers on Asus' site, but they are from last year.

 

[batmanuel]

Have you loaded the NF2 Unified Driver Package? It is listed as nf2v116_wxp.zip on the Asus download page (in the totally incorrect category of "Utilities" which may be why you didn't find it). Unzip this file and run the setup - it has all the chipset drivers, including the driver that controls the AGP interface. This chipset driver needs to be loaded before installing the video drivers. If you had a refurb, you may be missing the disk with those drivers on it.

 

[whizbang]

Thanks BatManuel! I'll try that as soon as I get home. That could totally explain the problem and, of course, all I got with my refurb was a board, anti-static bag and a box. The driver download file didn't show up anywhere in the A7N8X downloads page.

BTW, I loved The Tick, too (figuratively).

 

[batmanuel]

You know, for a show that only lasted eight episodes, I am shocked by how many people in these forums get the reference.

Like I said, ASUS put the whole darn driver package over in the Utilities section and not the Driver section where most reasonable people would expect to find it. Asus knows how to make some pretty decent hardware, but they don't know the first thing about designing a usable website. (Anyone here remember the week-long download outage around the Chinese New Year?)

Also, does your copy of XP have SP1 already applied? If not, you can make a CD with the service pack already applied by using the guide at TackTech.com which walks you through the process. It not only speeds up your XP installation, but my nForce seems to run a lot smoother when all the SP1 updates are installed with the OS (USB 2.0, for example, is enabled from your system's very first boot).

 

[whizbang]

Thanks again, BatManuel. I do need that SP1 conversion. I fixed my problem. I did download and install the drivers, however I think what actually was causing the problem was some conflict with the standard VGA device driver. I removed it from device manager and the system boots fine now.

Another question: In Device Manager, I still show an Ethernet Controller and USB Controller that are not installed properly. Do I need to install that funky 3Com driver for the other Ethernet controller and will SP1 solve the USB Controller problem?

BTW, remember this?:
<Cop puts parking ticket on car>
BatManuel: "Hey, what are you doing?"
Cop: "Are you Bat Manual?"
BatManuel: "It's Bat Manuel, no, I've never heard of him."
</LOL>

or,

"I saved your sister one night. In fact, I saved her three times, if you know what I mean."

 

[batmanuel]

Yes, the SP1 upgrade enables the onboard USB2 without having to install any extra drivers (like that USB2 driver on Asus's website). The 3COM driver (3com_90xv54.zip) is on their website. Unzip it and do an manual update of the ethernet controller, and tell windows to look in the "Disk 1" folder which has the proper .inf file and let the install wizard do it's stuff.

If everything is up and running, you can just download the SP1 update and run it on your system as it is. I'd only make a new install disk if you were planning to reinstall windows sometime soon. (Although now is a good time to do it if you want to, since you probably don't have too many apps installed yet).

And yeah, I loved the scene with the parking ticket. My favorite scene of all was where the Tick was fighting a clogged drain in the bathroom.