OK, I'll share my story here so that others may not fall into the same holes that I have.
Old Machine:
Abit KT7 board
Athlon 950MHz
ATI Radeon DDR 64MB AGP VIVO NTSC
2 - 80GB IDE ATA133 drives (one system, one 'other')
handful of SDRAM
Use this machine for graphic design and video editing. Have an 'ain't broke don't fix' philosophy, and keep this machine off the internet.
I don't have a lot of money, and I wanted to up my speed, a few pieces at a time.
I bought a Gigabyte 7VT600P-RZ (socket A) board. Since it takes DDR ram (and supports 400 FSB) I bought a stick of 512MB 400MHz DDR to go with it. I like shopping local, so (luckily) found a decent store and talked them down in price so that I wouldn't have to buy online. The mobo also has SATA, but the guy told me that if I have IDE and SATA drives, the SATA should be my system drive and the IDE storage and backup. So I splurged on a 120GB WD SATA.
I took the parts home, disassembled the old system, and started building the new. Cleaned all the dust out of all the fans and cards. Took apart the power supply to find a spider living in there! Full web and everything! Got it all cleaned up, and started building again. Started small.
I had power supply, mobo, processor, floppy, SATA drive, IDE CDROM, and ATI AGP card plugged in. Power on: front lights all go on and stay on. No video output. I don't have a PC speaker, and there's no onboard buzzer, so I'm OL in terms of error codes. Anyway, I couldn't find the Gigabyte error codes anywhere online. Anyone have any ideas?
I put on the jumper that resets the BIOS for 10 seconds and removed. Still no video, lights stay on. There's also a jumper on this board that sets FSB speed. Neither setting worked.
This mobo requires a 4x or 8x AGP card, and at that point I didn't even know which ATI card I had. I looked it up on their site using the P/N search to find the no-name model listed above. But it still didn't tell me whether it was 4x, 8x, 2x, or none. I didn't even know what that meant. So I went out to best buy and bought a PCI card with intent to return. Still no video.
So I went back to the shop, and they took a look at it for me, since they told me my CPU would be compatible with the new MOBO. When I came back, they told me they'd dealt me a bad stick of RAM, and that my AGP card actually works! Also, 'twas good to know that the FSB jumper has to be on to work with my CPU (force to slowest FSB speed).
I was also unsure of my AMD Athalon 950's FSB speed. Anyone know how to find that out?
So now I could post to video. Floppy cable was in backwards for a while, yielding that light coming on and staying on, but then I figured that one out. Trying to install from a fresh XP CD (pre-SP1). No native SATA support.
OK, here's a fun part of this, too. I like to simplify, and really liked this ergonomic Mac USB keyboard I was using with the old machine. Well, it seems that this keyboard won't work at the BIOS level, even though a USB keyboard is supported in the BIOS. So I went out and bought a USB to PS/2 adapter, thinking that the USB-to-PS/2 adapter that I had (which had a little picture of a mouse on it) was only for a mouse. When I got home, I realized the one I bought also had a picture of a mouse on it. come to find out, they're interchangeable. Come to find out, my Mac USB keyboard won't even work in BIOS with the PS/2 adapter. So I make it to RadioShack just before close (this is sunday, so I can't just go to a thrift shop or something) and shell out $15 for a PS/2 keyboard. Again, with intent to return. Now I can finally get into the BIOS and meddle with the settings.
I was told at the shop, that the bios setting is "Boot to SCSI" to boot to SATA. And also, that when installing windows XP, you have to hit F6 and then load "SCSI or RAID" drivers from a floppy disk. They are kind enough to put the files on the disk for me.
Now I must have a bunk copy of XP, because every time it would come up and say "hit F6 to load..." I would hit F6 and nothing would happen. So I thought it was another broken keyboard. But lo and behold, in the next segment of loading, if I hit F2, it responds. So do I have a broken F6 key or what? (I would find out later when booting to DOS that hitting F6 gives me the ^Z it should, so it's not broken -- and oh yes, this gets fun).
I discovered through trial and error that mashing all the keys when it says hit F6 responds. It asks me a wierd question about computer type (standard i486 or other). so I hit other, and put in my disk I was given at the shop. It gets to line such-and such, and then displays an error. But at this point I'm not even sure what I'm doing.
I have a laptop on dial-up with no floppy drive, only CD. so I dailed up and spend 30 minutes downloading the Gigabyte driver, only to find that their .exe automatically detects for their mobo before letting you do anything, so I can't even extract the files to put on the floppy.
so I get out the cd from the box and follow a readme as to which files to put onto a floppy. I made a bootable DR-DOS cd with nero, and put those files on it. I booted this cd in the new computer and saved files to the floppy the manual way. (I've never seen an OS use the B: drive before, but for some reason, DR DOS likes to call your floppy drive that.) so back I go to installing XP.
eventually I can figure out how to get XP installer to recognize my floppy and the appropriate SATA raid driver. and then just before it starts installing windows, it says there are no available storage volumes on which to install windows. The answer to this I would find is that you have to have another IDE hard disk drive plugged in to be able to install to the SATA drive. Why? Why? Why?
anyway, what a nightmare install. and now I'm figuring out tricky ways to get service pack 2 and other windows updates without being online. I was downloading SP2 (for net administrators only!!!) while writing this on the laptop at the library with high speed. anyone have any better solutions.
but I'd love some commentary on the wierd stuff that went on during this whole hell.
thanks!
Old Machine:
Abit KT7 board
Athlon 950MHz
ATI Radeon DDR 64MB AGP VIVO NTSC
2 - 80GB IDE ATA133 drives (one system, one 'other')
handful of SDRAM
Use this machine for graphic design and video editing. Have an 'ain't broke don't fix' philosophy, and keep this machine off the internet.
I don't have a lot of money, and I wanted to up my speed, a few pieces at a time.
I bought a Gigabyte 7VT600P-RZ (socket A) board. Since it takes DDR ram (and supports 400 FSB) I bought a stick of 512MB 400MHz DDR to go with it. I like shopping local, so (luckily) found a decent store and talked them down in price so that I wouldn't have to buy online. The mobo also has SATA, but the guy told me that if I have IDE and SATA drives, the SATA should be my system drive and the IDE storage and backup. So I splurged on a 120GB WD SATA.
I took the parts home, disassembled the old system, and started building the new. Cleaned all the dust out of all the fans and cards. Took apart the power supply to find a spider living in there! Full web and everything! Got it all cleaned up, and started building again. Started small.
I had power supply, mobo, processor, floppy, SATA drive, IDE CDROM, and ATI AGP card plugged in. Power on: front lights all go on and stay on. No video output. I don't have a PC speaker, and there's no onboard buzzer, so I'm OL in terms of error codes. Anyway, I couldn't find the Gigabyte error codes anywhere online. Anyone have any ideas?
I put on the jumper that resets the BIOS for 10 seconds and removed. Still no video, lights stay on. There's also a jumper on this board that sets FSB speed. Neither setting worked.
This mobo requires a 4x or 8x AGP card, and at that point I didn't even know which ATI card I had. I looked it up on their site using the P/N search to find the no-name model listed above. But it still didn't tell me whether it was 4x, 8x, 2x, or none. I didn't even know what that meant. So I went out to best buy and bought a PCI card with intent to return. Still no video.
So I went back to the shop, and they took a look at it for me, since they told me my CPU would be compatible with the new MOBO. When I came back, they told me they'd dealt me a bad stick of RAM, and that my AGP card actually works! Also, 'twas good to know that the FSB jumper has to be on to work with my CPU (force to slowest FSB speed).
I was also unsure of my AMD Athalon 950's FSB speed. Anyone know how to find that out?
So now I could post to video. Floppy cable was in backwards for a while, yielding that light coming on and staying on, but then I figured that one out. Trying to install from a fresh XP CD (pre-SP1). No native SATA support.
OK, here's a fun part of this, too. I like to simplify, and really liked this ergonomic Mac USB keyboard I was using with the old machine. Well, it seems that this keyboard won't work at the BIOS level, even though a USB keyboard is supported in the BIOS. So I went out and bought a USB to PS/2 adapter, thinking that the USB-to-PS/2 adapter that I had (which had a little picture of a mouse on it) was only for a mouse. When I got home, I realized the one I bought also had a picture of a mouse on it. come to find out, they're interchangeable. Come to find out, my Mac USB keyboard won't even work in BIOS with the PS/2 adapter. So I make it to RadioShack just before close (this is sunday, so I can't just go to a thrift shop or something) and shell out $15 for a PS/2 keyboard. Again, with intent to return. Now I can finally get into the BIOS and meddle with the settings.
I was told at the shop, that the bios setting is "Boot to SCSI" to boot to SATA. And also, that when installing windows XP, you have to hit F6 and then load "SCSI or RAID" drivers from a floppy disk. They are kind enough to put the files on the disk for me.
Now I must have a bunk copy of XP, because every time it would come up and say "hit F6 to load..." I would hit F6 and nothing would happen. So I thought it was another broken keyboard. But lo and behold, in the next segment of loading, if I hit F2, it responds. So do I have a broken F6 key or what? (I would find out later when booting to DOS that hitting F6 gives me the ^Z it should, so it's not broken -- and oh yes, this gets fun).
I discovered through trial and error that mashing all the keys when it says hit F6 responds. It asks me a wierd question about computer type (standard i486 or other). so I hit other, and put in my disk I was given at the shop. It gets to line such-and such, and then displays an error. But at this point I'm not even sure what I'm doing.
I have a laptop on dial-up with no floppy drive, only CD. so I dailed up and spend 30 minutes downloading the Gigabyte driver, only to find that their .exe automatically detects for their mobo before letting you do anything, so I can't even extract the files to put on the floppy.
so I get out the cd from the box and follow a readme as to which files to put onto a floppy. I made a bootable DR-DOS cd with nero, and put those files on it. I booted this cd in the new computer and saved files to the floppy the manual way. (I've never seen an OS use the B: drive before, but for some reason, DR DOS likes to call your floppy drive that.) so back I go to installing XP.
eventually I can figure out how to get XP installer to recognize my floppy and the appropriate SATA raid driver. and then just before it starts installing windows, it says there are no available storage volumes on which to install windows. The answer to this I would find is that you have to have another IDE hard disk drive plugged in to be able to install to the SATA drive. Why? Why? Why?
anyway, what a nightmare install. and now I'm figuring out tricky ways to get service pack 2 and other windows updates without being online. I was downloading SP2 (for net administrators only!!!) while writing this on the laptop at the library with high speed. anyone have any better solutions.
but I'd love some commentary on the wierd stuff that went on during this whole hell.
thanks!
sorry....i had to say it
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