Originally posted by: Denithor
Solution to your troubles:
ASRock 4CoreDual-Sata2 $66
Celeron 420 $43
The motherboard has AGP & PCI-E (4x) slots as well as DDR (184-pin) and DDR2 (240-pin) memory sockets. That Celeron is basically 1/2 of the e2140 (Core 2 Solo, same C2D architecture but only one core) so you will already be familiar with the performance.
Huh. I heard someone else in this thread talk about this board, but said they couldn't find it anymore so I wrote it off. That's definitely a solid alternative, thank you!
Originally posted by: Denithor
EDIT: And, by the way, what's wrong with your main C2D system? Maybe we can help talk you through your problems.
Thank you for that offer, I appreciate it. I have another thread I did about it
here.
My problem is unique for sure, although the solution might be common. OK, sorry, what I mean is, I have two 320g drives set up as a raid 0, and I want to keep the second partition. During a slipstream process/install, I deleted the first partition, recreated it, formatted it, and installed Windows XP Pro on it. Everything went along just fine until the usual reboot, then I get this millisecond flash or hint of a blue screen before the machine reboots again, and again, and again. I suspect it is one of a few things or all of them.
1: The drive letters changed, and the second primary partition is now lettered as C. The first partition I deleted, recreated, formatted, and installed on WAS C, but now it is D. One suggested that is screwing up my slipstreaming.
2: I possibly have a setting wrong in the bios, because I didn't know why the option of AHCI or RAID. I get a line of text warning me that the AHCI bios is not loaded during the post messages.
3: I have a bad board.
4: I have some bad memory.
What I'm going after this afternoon is making sure I got everything setup right in the bios, and running some testing tools from a bootable CD to test the motherboard, memory, etc. Unfortunately, I can't get a hold of my MVP/Intel buddy so outside of memtest, I don't know what to use... yet. I want to eliminate all the common factors, and try to narrow the cause down to a manageable list. I wish my Corsair 2gb flash drive was here from newegg. I could make it bootable and that would save me additional CD burning. I have my e1505 laptop along side though, a full stack of rewrites available, so I have what I need to get it working. As long as the hardware is ok that is.
Temps are amazingly low via the Abit EQ tab in the bios, so I know I did good by the HSF and the AS5 I used, at least at this stage.
Reason for the slipstreaming is that I'm having issues using a floppy. I have three available; panasonic, teac, and nec, and I used each one. The floppy disks I used came out of a box of floppies I bought a year ago, stored in a gallon ziplock baggy. I know that floppies are more perishable than the strawberries fermenting in my fridge, so I may go out and buy another pack of them. I also used three different FDC cables.
Problem is, the drivers can't be read, then they can. During several install attempts, the ability to read the raid drivers off the floppy is hit and miss. I have never encountered this issue before. The only common factor is that box of disks, so right after I reply this to the topic, I'm heading out to get a new pack of them.
I also wanted to do the slipstreaming to eliminate my dependency on floppy disks. IMO, one of the worst oversights of Windows XP design for installing raid drivers. I even entertained the idea of building a floppy drive emulator using a micro controller on a breadboard. Too deep for such a simple need though. Vista fixes this problem, but no way do I want vista, at least not yet.
Sorry for the flood of info, but you asked, and every hard issue I have had has been solved by you golden gurus here. Believe me, I appreciate it!
I'll edit this or post another reply when I have more specific information from my MB's post.
THANK YOU for your time!
Hop