Installing Windows XP on MSI E350IA-E45

[Drakula]

Recently, we got a MSI E350IA-E45 to replace older system as DVR/Media PC. Was not really paying much attention to it at first, but then found out that the motherboard uses EFI instead of BIOS. I was not bother by it much at first, however, when I tried to move the Windows XP from old system to the E350 system, it would stuck at boot screen with big Windows logo. Windows will not load any further than that. I tried many times to see if it was the problem with that installation. Tried to reinstall by booting the installation CD via USB CD-Rom, but it would stuck at "Setup is starting Windows"... I asked MSI's customer service, someone responded stating that Windows XP 32-bit is supported and just need to change the boot device to "Windows boot manage" in "BIOS". Surprisingly, there is no such thing, at least I cannot find it.

There might be people why bother install Windows XP 32-bit on it, the short answers are driver and user compatibility, as the TV card driver might not have 64-bit support, and my family is more familiar with Windows XP, so it will be easier for them to navigate things on it.

So I am just wondering if it is possible to install Windows XP 32-bit on that system?

 

[Vette73]

You have the newwest Bios? maybe it was added after your board was made and that is what CS is talking about.

But yea people buying new system will probably use Win7, so few will have your issue. Even I skipped vista but Win7 was enough over XP for me.

 

[Nothinman]

You're setting yourself up for a lot of pain by sticking with XP, but that's up to you. Anyway, if there's no way to enable BIOS emulation you're screwed because XP doesn't and will never support EFI because it's practically abandoned by MS at this point. Check for BIOS updates and see if they have the option that support gave you, if it's not there then you'll have to call them back and ask again.

 

[Drakula]

Thanks for the replies and yeah, I flashed to the newest BIOS. I only select XP is like mentioned, just for user compatibility, might gradually migrate to 7 when have time.

Anyway, I have finally solve the problem. The main culprit is...me. Because of my stupidity, I did not realize that the TV card might be the one that is denying Windows from booting. And well, as you might have guess it, the second culprit is the TV card. For some reason, when adding it to the motherboard, Windows will refuse to boot past the boot logo screen. I have tested the card before in another system and it was working, so I am unsure what is going on here. PCI-E x1 card should not have problem with x16 lane right? Is there some patch that I might have missed which fixes the problem?

If anyone have possible answer, please let me know. Thanks in advance.

Edit: I have to mention that I did boot into Knoppix Live CD, accidently grab the wrong CD at that time, without problem even with card left installed.

 

[Vette73]

Yea it should boot fine. That and the 16x port is really a 4x so it should not be a problem.

Get the OS installed and run the system warm then shut down, install, and reboot to see if that helps.

 

[Drakula]

Yea it should boot fine. That and the 16x port is really a 4x so it should not be a problem.

Get the OS installed and run the system warm then shut down, install, and reboot to see if that helps.

Thank you for the suggestion. Did install a new OS to test it out. Tried your method but Windows still boot past the logo and just hangs.

Instead of installing Windows XP though, I tried Windows 7 32-bit. I even left the TV card in on purpose to see what happens. The CD would boot into the installation process and everything without problem. However, it hangs at pretty much the last step of the installation where it says "Completing installation" or something similar. So I did another install without the card and everything went okay. Then proceeds to install the TV card's driver, shut the system down and install the card, and it hangs at the boot logo.

So trying to determine if it is a Windows thing or something else. I did a fresh install of Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit beta, or RC1, whichever is the one they were letting people download and test at the end of 2009 and sometime early 2010. I know you are not suppose to use it anymore, but it is the only 64-bit Windows I have at the moment and I am only using it for debugging the system. After installing Windows, I just add the card in, since there was no difference whether the driver was installed or not; if it wants to hang, it will hang.

Between the installation of Windows, I add the TV card to another system to see if the problem is card related. I installed the card to the x1 slot first and boot into Windows, which was installed for that system and it was an XP, without problem. Then installed the card to the x16 slot and it also boot into Windows without problem.

Well, after all these installing of OS and hardware(s) and what not, it finally did it. The Windows boot into the desktop with TV card added onto the E350 motherboard. So 64-bit Windows triumph over the 32-bit ones. One for the 64-bit. But now the thing I am wondering about is, is this problem truly a "Windows" problem? Or could it have been something related to the motherboard and BIOS and whatever, basically, not totally a software problem? The problem, at this moment anyway, seems to be related particular to the MSI E350IA-E45 and 32-bit Windows.

So currently, looks like the temporary solution is to use a 64-bit Windows 7, though not sure if it has to be Windows 7 or not. But reading some comments while Googling for some possible answers, it seems the 64-bit drivers are bigger hit and misses than the 32-bit ones.

If I have another Zacate board from another manufacturer, I probably can narrow down the problem further. Will report my finding to MSI and see what they say.


If anyone can shed some more light on this situation, please do.

Thanks in advance.

 

[ViRGE]

Let me take a guess: it's a Hauppauge card? If so, then I can assure you it's the drivers; they have a long and distinguished history of screwing up like that.

In any case, if it works with a different version of Windows then it's highly unlikely to be a BIOS/mobo problem. Certainly the different platform brought on the problem, but at the end of the day it's likely something the drivers are doing wrong that doesn't get along with your Zacate setup, ergo it's a driver problem.

 

[Nothinman]

So currently, looks like the temporary solution is to use a 64-bit Windows 7

I would say that's the long term solution...

 

[Drakula]

Let me take a guess: it's a Hauppauge card? If so, then I can assure you it's the drivers; they have a long and distinguished history of screwing up like that.

In any case, if it works with a different version of Windows then it's highly unlikely to be a BIOS/mobo problem. Certainly the different platform brought on the problem, but at the end of the day it's likely something the drivers are doing wrong that doesn't get along with your Zacate setup, ergo it's a driver problem.

It is FusionHDTV7 Dual Express by DviCO. Come to think of it, have yet to deal with any Hauppauge product, actually. Anyway, thank you for mentioning the possible driver problem. So I went ahead and reinstall a clean copy of Windows XP, instead of trying to migrate one like before, and after it went through the whole installation processes, show the "welcome", do the showing of start menu, and without any driver installed other than the ones that Windows install, I shut down the system and plug in the card. Then deja vu, Windows hang. More details to follow below as part of the reply to Nothinman...

I would say that's the long term solution...

Well, after some thought, I thought about using the 64-bit Windows 7 as long term solution rather than temporary, so after the Windows XP installation mentioned just above did not work out, I went and install Windows 7 64-bit again and decide to play around with it more. Also, as mentioned, Windows 7 64-bit can boot in without hanging even with the card added. Therefore, this time, I thought I can add in the TV card later after install some of the main drivers, i.e. display and whatever. Did that, shut the system down, and add in the card.

Lo and behold, the 64-bit Windows 7 hangs as well, to my surprise!! At this time, I was baffled because it was not hanging last night, but then I did not install anything when trying to boot the 64-bit Windows last night. So the logical course of action, at least I thought it was, is to uninstall everything that I installed and tried again. After the removal of AMD/ATI drivers, Windows 7 was able to boot in with card added.

"No problems then" I thought, and attempted to install AMD drivers again with Windows booted in and card still in slot. Upon the part where the installer trying to determine what hardware the system have, Windows froze. At this time, I thought it was AMD's Catalyst Install Manager that cause the problem. So after rebooting, I tried to install the driver by going into Device Manager and Update the driver manually, the display driver anyway. The driver did install without problem and prompted me to reboot. Did that and Windows was booting in past the logo screen, but hangs at the very next black screen.

Shut down, remove the card, boot into Windows, remove the driver, reboot with card added, were the next few steps I took. At this time, I really thought AMD drivers are the problem, so I tried to install couple other drivers manually without using their installer. But drivers like the PCIE driver did not give any problems and allow the system to reboot into Windows without problem.

The very next step is basically a big revelation of how I arrived at my current conclusion of this whole problem. I went and used the Device Manager again because I was not sure what other AMD drivers other than display should I install. I used the "Scan for hardware change" function and the system froze similar to what Catalyst Install Manager was trying to do trying to install drivers.

Therefore, my current conclusion is that there is some weird incompatibility between the TV card and something on the motherboard, it could very well be the APU, GPU, whatever. Anyway, the incompatibility of the hardware causes the software to froze up, hanging, or non responding, as the software tried to access certain functions, features, or do system calls to particular parts of the hardware.

I know ViRGE might still say that it is the drivers, and he is right, but I think drivers are only partly to blame. Because I tried the TV card on two different systems, I also put different PCIE cards into the E350, but the Windows XP on whether E350 with other cards or the other systems with TV card never hang like like it does with E350 and TV card.

And while I was able to track down the problem slightly further, I am not sure who to contact about the problem anymore. There are four parties involved and contacting each of them will be fine, but they might just kick me around and tell me to ask the other ones for answers.

Anyway, thanks for reading this very long thing. The problem is not yet solved. And any type of help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Drakula]

The long story made me forget one thing that is somewhat important. I was able to get into Safe Mode of Windows 7 64-bit. But then that is somewhat expected as it does not load the display driver from AMD.

Edit: More on the Safe Mode thing. It seems that Safe Mode of Windows 7 64-bit is a true Safe Mode. It can allow boot in with display driver and TV card both installed. It can also allow me to use the "Scan for hardware change" in Device Manager without freezing up.

Something just seem to be causing the problem when trying to start Windows normally but does not affect Safe Mode.

Cannot get into Windows XP's Safe Mode with TV card installed though.

 

[Nothinman]

Therefore, my current conclusion is that there is some weird incompatibility between the TV card and something on the motherboard, it could very well be the APU, GPU, whatever. Anyway, the incompatibility of the hardware causes the software to froze up, hanging, or non responding, as the software tried to access certain functions, features, or do system calls to particular parts of the hardware.

It's very possible that card's firmware and/or driver do something that board doesn't like. Whether it's the board or card's firmware at fault is hard to say without talking to both companies extensively. With all of the various quirks with ACPI, resource allocation, etc on motherboards it's really amazing that this sort of thing isn't more common.

 

[Drakula]

It's very possible that card's firmware and/or driver do something that board doesn't like. Whether it's the board or card's firmware at fault is hard to say without talking to both companies extensively. With all of the various quirks with ACPI, resource allocation, etc on motherboards it's really amazing that this sort of thing isn't more common.

Yeah, that is very possible. But I really would not say driver was the problem, not yet, because during my testings, there are times that I did not install the driver, only install the card to see if Windows would stuck or not and, well, it does. And I am currently wondering if it is the E350 motherboard due to that I have at least install the TV card to three different systems with different chipsets and they all can boot into Windows without problem and even recognize the TV card. But yes, it could very well be something about ACPI and other resource allocation, because my previous discovery about the Safe Mode of Windows 7. Have played around with almost every setting possible in BIOS but the problem remains, so if it is problem with ACPI or certain resource allocation, I cannot turn them off in BIOS, at least not with the setting they provided.

So after all the testings, multiple booting and rebooting, installation of Windows (it is the most Windows installations that have done in such a short period of time). I am going to take a little break from testing for a little bit and think about what else can be done, however, currently, there are not much I can do except using another system that works with the TV card and also wait for MSI technical support to respond to see if they come up with any other solutions.

But if anyone had any sort of thoughts on what other kind of testing that could be done, please do not hesitate and let me know.