Really messed up comp

[LuNoTiCK]

Lately I have become stupid at fixing other people's computers, especially cheap ones.

Anyway one of my friends have a really bad computer. I tried formatting, with windows 98 SE and all I get is problems. Like the video drivers won't work somehow, it gives an error when you restart. I'm not sure what kind of soundcard he uses, I wish I could figure that out. When trying to install Windows XP it just locks up after you finish installing and try to get into XP. He doesn't have any of the software that the motherboard or anything comes with, somehow he didn't get it from the person when he bought it at the computer show. There is only the motherboard manual. So if anyone can offer their help it would be appreciated, and you would have my gratitude.

His System specs are:
Motherboard: ECS P4VMM2
Video: Crappy Onboard Video
Sound Card: Not Sure
Hard Drive: Some 40GB Western Digital
Network Card: Netgear FA311
Regular Floppy
CDRW, and DVD, not sure.

Well if anyone can help me please post it.

 

[Trashman]

Not having the Drivers CD can be a problem but you can go to ECS website and download drivers for that board....here's the layout of that board and the features it has link and for drivers download/motherboard drivers.
If windows is crashing or locking up though, you may have a hardware problem.

 

[LuNoTiCK]

As soon as I use the video drivers in Win98 it just gives me an error after the restart like somethings missing or I forget. I've been doing this forever, just getting madder.

Also when trying Windows XP, all I get is freezing. When trying to boot into it, it freezes on a black screen. Right after it finishes installing and everything. If you try to restart after that, it will freeze after you click the name and enter the password for Administrator.

 

[Trashman]

with your windows98 install, the first thing that should be installed are the VIA4-1 drivers, did you install those drivers at all? and then your video, make sure you are using the correct video drivers....

 

[LuNoTiCK]

I first installed the via 4 in 1's. Than I tried the video drivers, I'm pretty sure they are the right ones. I also tried installing direct x before the video drivers for no reason at all, just hoping for some reason it would work. I'm really clueless. Right now I took the sound card and network card out hoping it would work better, than maybe one of them is messed up or causing a conflict or I can install it that way.

VIA P4M266 VGA Driver Support Model Name K7VMM, P4VMM2