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Setup Tips for an A7N8X Regular

T

TheBoyBlunder

Diamond Member
Anyone? Anything?
So far I've figured that...
1) Have the nvidia ide drivers handy on a floppy
2) have the latest bios + the bios flasher handy on another floppy
3) make sure all the jumpers are set
4) make sure I choose all the idiot friendly settings in the bios the first time around

Anything else?
 
The order of the service pack and driver installation is important. I laid it out in this thread for the Deluxe, same thing applies for the standard version. If you're using WinXP, then the important thing is to get SP1 on CD before beginning, because you don't want to install the mobo drivers until after you've got SP1 installed, and without the mobo drivers, you won't have NIC functionality to download SP1 (unless you want to get a little creative and extract/install just the NIC driver).

edit: if your WinXP CD already has SP1 built in, you're ok. If you're using Win2000 then it's not critical to get the latest service pack installed before the mobo drivers, although I do that anyway.

Good luck with your new riggie! 🙂
 
If you are interested you can make a slipstream XP install disk with SP1 already installed if you don't already have one. I have made one with just SP1 (not 1A which has MS Java removed) and it works fine. A real nice guide for how to do this can be found here. The only things I would add to that guide is to check the label on your original XP CD and use it in the boxes where you put the label information and you may want to use the boot file from your original XP install disk which you can get off the disk by using ISO buster.
 
Sorry, I should have been more specific. Do I need sp1 installed at any time to install the nvidia drivers? Or can I install everything without sp1 with no problem? (and possibly install sp1 later, again with no problem)
 
If you install the driver pack before installing SP1, then your USB 2.0 is probably not going to work.
 
Bump - time for another question. Should I let the retention notch on my agp card just sit in the last...um, "pin bay" on the agp slot? (let the retention notch sit in the last section on the agp slot...about 20 pins according the manual) I'm thinking yes...but I'd rather not fry anything.

//edit - second, is it a good idea to flash to the latest bios right away?
 
As opposed to removing the retention latch? Yeah, it's fine as-is, the keyways on the card and slot keep it lined up properly.

The conventional advice with BIOS updates is to update if you need to update (meaning, if the update addresses an issue that your system has, or might have). I'm going to let new BIOSes prove themselves in the real world for about a month from now on, but it's up to the owner.
 
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