Somthing is Horribly wrong.

[Renorien]

Okay So I got a free computer off a friend, not great but it having some problems, Like for instance I have 3 missing updates on this computer

1.Universal Serial Bus (USB) Controller
2. Video Controler (VGA Compatible)
3.Multimedai Audio Controller

And I have installed the right and legit driver for each but when I restart the computer the XP (OS not 64 bit) Frezzes at the load screen. The only way I can get back into the computer is to go to Safe mode and system restore it back a day or two.

Things I need to know

1. Why do the drivers cause my Windows not to load?
2. What is causing the drivers to do this?
3. Is there a way to fix this without reinstalling windows? or buying new hardware?


Another problem with this computer is that I have a MSI 5200 Video card that I want to put in this computer I have the drivers for this but have not installed them because the computer wont read the slot for the card I think it has somthing to do with the Video controller not being installed. I also know that i have to disable the other video driver and go thu BIOs setup to run the card.

Things I need to know -2
1. Is the video controller causing the PC not to read the slot?
2. Is there anything esle I need to know about installing the MSI 5200 Card?

Any help on this would be amazing, I've been working on this thing all day with some luck and then some failures

To all of those who help Thanks alot

Also Here are the links to my card and motherboard

1. Msi 5200
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl...tCGDQ&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=13&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0

2. ASUS A7V8X-LA MotherBoard
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl...KSnAw&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=15&ved=1t:429,r:1,s:0

I know the links are long but they are the right pictures they should help you for more detail

 

[Harvey]

There are a number of possible causes for your problems. It would help if you gave us the make and model of your motherboard, RAM, video card (if not onboard video) and any other significant components.

How did it work when you installed XP, before you tried to install the drivers?

I have to run out for awhile, but I'll check back. The answers to my questions will help anyone else to help you.

 

[Renorien]

The motherboard and the MSI 5200 card are posted in links so you can view them, The ram is DDR the motherboard can only hold two one gig ram sticks

When I installed windows XP I cleaned and fixed everything, the Hard drive is brand new its a 320 gig Western Digital hard drive I put windows XP Home Edtion on it, its not 64 bit. It works fine right now with No problem BUT! I cant install the drivers and when I do Windows freezes up , I'm sorry but I can't give much more info unless you ask pacifically on what you are looking for. I have no idea why it freezes or why the drivers cause it, When I uninstall them using safe mode it all works fine again.

I guess I will post step by step what I did today,

1. Put in the new hard drive, Check to see if everything was hooked up correctly.
2. Power the computer and installed windows XP Home Edtion
3. After it was done and after the Restart loged into windows and Check to see what drivers where missing Installed the drivers using a disk
4. Noted that I didn't have the driver disk for the 3 missing driver now.
5. Got each driver off of there sites and installed them. Restarted the computer and the Xp fail to load.
6. After having to force power the pc off, I went into safe mode and uninstalled the driver then did a system recover for any other issues.
7. Windows work fine, Tired step 5-6 again same thing happend.
8. Talked to a friend he said to Try installing the driver using Safe mode with NETworking. I have yet to try that.
9. Went ahead and Installed the normal updates for the PC (Service pack 2,3 etc)
10. Created a system restore point just in-case step 5-6 happens again. Then I posted here.

 

[Gunbuster]

Is that one of those toaster sized case HP's? Some had bad CPU fans and thermal paste. (All of them sucked. You would be best served to drop it off at the nearest recycling center)

 

[Renorien]

Haha! No its not the case is a Super cooler case, It has temp reader on the front, about 6 fans to keep it nice a cool, and Pretty lights, Lol. It has a Black Steel 520w power supply in it as well to power the fans and computer (duh)

 

[Renorien]

I am once again trying to install the missing drivers so Far I was able to install the Usb Drive And I was not able to Install the Video driver or the Mutil media it start to install the driver using the network but then it ask for a disk. Any idea on that? I'm going to restart to make sure the USB will not freeze windows.

Note I am in Windows safe mode with networking.

Also the pc started fine now I just need to find a way to install the video and Mutil media driver

 

[NesuD]

Did you install the motherboard drivers for that board? The generic motherboard drivers in xp don't always work very well with via based chipsets and AGP video. Make sure that you have the VIA board drivers install and the AGP GART driver installed before you install any of the other drivers.

 

[Renorien]

What is AGP GART?

And The Driver I have installed right now are.

Computer
Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) PC

DISK Drives
ST310211A
WDC WD3200AAJB-00TYA0

DISPLAY ADAPTERS
(Y?)Video Controller (VGA Compatible)

Dvd/CD-ROM drives
ATAPI-CD ROM-DRIVE-56MAX
LITE-ON LTR-52327S

Human Interface Devices
HID-Compliant consumer control device
HID-compliant consumer control device
HID-Compliant device
USB Human Interface Device
USB HumanInterface Device

IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers
Primary IDE Channel
Primary IDE Channel
Secondary IDE channel
Secondary IDE channel
Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller
VIA Bus Master IDE Controller

IEEE 1394 Bus Host controllers
VIA OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 HOST controller

Keyboards
HID Keyboard Device

Mice and otehr pointing devices
HID-Complaint mouse

Network Adapters
1394 Net Adapter
Realtek RTL8139 Family PCI Fast Ethernet NIC
VIA Rhine II Fast Ethernet Adapter

Ports (COM&LPT)
Communications Port (com1)
ECP printer port (ppt1)

Processors
AMD Sempron(tm) 3000+
AMD Sempron(tm) 3000+

SOund, Video and game controllers
Audio Codecs
Legacy Audio Drivers
Legacy Video capture Devices
Media control Devices
(Y?)Multimedia Audio Controller
Video Codecs

System Devices
ACPI Fan
ACPI Fixed Feature Button
ACPI Thermal Zone
ACPI External Thermal Reader
Direct Memory access controller
ISAPNP Read Data Port
Microcode Updata Device
Microsoft ACPI-Complaint system
Microsoft system management BIOS Driver
Motherboard resources
Motherboard resoruces
Numeric Data processor
PCI bus
PCI standard host CPU bridge
PCI standard ISA bridge
Plug and Play Software Device Enumerator
Programmable interrupt controller
System board
System CMOS/real time clock
System speaker
System timer
Terminal server divice redirector
VIA CPU to AGP Controller

Universal serial Bus controllers
USB Composite Device
USB roothub there are 5 of these
VIA REV 5 or later USB UNIVERSAL Host Controller there are 5 of these
Via USB Enhanced Host Controller

These are everything that is in Device manager now my finger hurt.

 

[Renorien]

Hmm this is really werid, I tried to reinstall the Multimedia Audio Controller again and this time it says

"There was a problem installing this hardware:
Multimedia Audio Controller
An error occurred during the installation of the device
Access is denied"

So going by my Drivers and what not, Am I missing something? Anyone know where I can find these drivers? Because I can't seem to get them.

 

[Harvey]

I searched Google for your "a7v8x-la"+drivers. This gave me leads that this is an OEM board used by Compaq desktop models. Here are the specs for your motherboard.

I then searched for "a7v8x-la"+drivers+compaq+model. The third link on that page identified one of the models that used your board as a Compaq Presario SR1232OM Desktop.

The actual link goes to a page for downloading the BIOS for the machine. Searching HP's site for the model number led to this page with all of the drivers you should need for your board.

Some OEM boards will not work correctly with the drivers for more generic models from the same company, A7V8X in this case. That may explain why you had problems.

Another issue you'll have to address is, the header for the front panel connectors is not a standard configuration so if your case isn't an HP/Compaq product, you'll have to deal with connecting the front panel of your case to the motherboard.

Since this is an older board, another thing you should check is the power capacitors on the board. Those are the tall, cylindrical components (~ 0.74" - 1.25" tall x ~ 0.3" - 0.4" wide). If the top of any of them looks dome shaped, instead of flat, the board is wasted, and it will only go downhill from there. Unfortunately, even if the cost of the caps is reasonable, you have to be both good and a bit lucky at soldering to avoid damaging the inner layers of a multi-layer motherboard.

I hope that helps. Good luck.

< update >

Want the manual?

 

[Renorien]

wow thanks alot man i'll get to work after I eat and let you know how it goes.

 

[Renorien]

Okay I have one question, On the Drivers, Should I just reinstall a new windows and then install these drivers? or is there another way to do this? Because i can't find which drivers are correct and which are not.

Also I want to thank you for taking the time you look that up and help me out, and for keeping your word on returning to my post. :thumbsup:

 

[Harvey]

A clean installation is guaranteed to be the cleanest way. You may save some time if you can figure out which drivers, etc. to uninstall, but if there are any conflicts, you'll be back to square one later, rather than sooner.

I suggest the following:

1. Download all the drivers, and copy them to a flash drive or CD.

2. When you install Windows, do NOT have the machine connected to the Internet, and opt NOT to activate it right away. Activate it after you have your installation confirmed, your drivers, AV, anti-spyware and firewall installed and updated.

3. Create a Download folder, and copy your drivers and other files there. Creating a separate sub-folder for each group of files helps to remember where and what they are and to update them as you find newer versions. For example, if you use Avast AV, Comodo firewall, Spybot Search & Destroy anti-spyware, WinRAR, etc., you would make a separate folder for your motherboard and each of those program groups and install them from their respective folders.

And you're welcome.

 

[Renorien]

alright So a fresh start seem to be the way to go . . . I hope I can find my cd key lol, If I can't do you know how I could avoid doing a new windows? Could I just uninstall all the drivers?

 

[Harvey]

alright So a fresh start seem to be the way to go . . . I hope I can find my cd key lol, If I can't do you know how I could avoid doing a new windows? Could I just uninstall all the drivers?

You can try, but if you ever have to re-install Windows, you'll be back to square one needing your CD key.

Something else you'll want -- If they haven't already done it, MS is cutting off support for Windows XP SP2 any day now. If that's the case, search the forums and Google for info about slipstreaming SP3. You can download the entire collection of SP3 updates from MS (not including the most current ones), and you'll find instructions on how to burn a CD that will include them when you first install Windows. The actual files are from MS, and it's legal, as long you use a legal copy to create the slipstream disk.

Slipstreaming SP3 works for new installations. If you install SP3 over a current SP2 installation, Do NOT believe them when they say you can skip some of the SP2 updates. Do all SP2 updates before installing SP3. If you don't, what may happen is that the system won't have record of installing a few updates that were superseded by later updates in SP3. That will cause it to display nag notices that you are missing some critical updates, but when you try to update them from MS, they won't install, and the problem will continue.

If you're somewhere between the two conditions, MS offers a set of files for slipstreaming SP2, as well, using the same kind of installation procedure.

A clean slipstream installation of SP3 will also save a lot of disk space because you won't have to store all the update files and backups and of backups of backups of progressively updated files.

My turn to go for dinner. Probably won't be back until tomorrow.