Time for a new title AGAIN - reinstall Windows?

[Felecha]

First time trying to replace a motherboard. Replacing ABIT KT7RAID (5 years old and giving me trouble) with an ASRock Dual-SATA2. Tower is an Inwin Q300.

I've studied the steps thanks to the manual and web sites etc. I'm at the point of connecting the small connectors for LEDs, reset button, power switch. They have nice printing on one side of the black plastic connector, "Power Sw" etc, so it's clear which one is which. And I think I can figure out the ASRock manual with its diagram of the Panel Header. PLED+ would be the positive of the Power LED, PLED- the negative. There is also PWRBTN# and RESET# with GND next to each one so I take it # means positive, too. Unfortunately I did not think to look for clues when I pulled them off the old board. The clues I do have are that on the "back side" of each of the black connectors where the brass crimped end shows through, on each connector there is a triangle symbol molded into the plastic, over the end of one wire and not the other.

On all but the Power SW connector, the triangle is over the white wire. The other wire is colored for those. On the Power SW connector the triangle is over the black, and the other is white.

I'm hoping there is some standard plan there that can be used to determine hot and ground.

A friend of mine said he's pretty sure that if I got them backward they just wouldn't work. It wouldn't hurt anything. That would be great but I want to ask first.

Thanks for any help. So far it's been going well and I'm looking forward to firing it up!

 

[evilharp]

With most cases, the led wiring uses coloured wire as + and white as ground -.

To play it safe, look at your case manual (most come with at least an information sheet) to verify the wiring.

 

[Felecha]

No docs for the case came with it when it was built (custom built at a local shop). Docs and disks for everything but the case, actually. Still have it all in my files, but never had anything for the case. Can't find anything on it at the mfg website, nothing on Google for a manual for it.

What about the idea of trying it and if it's wrong it just won't work but won't fry anything?

 

[mechBgon]

The power switch and reset switch are momentary-contact switches and don't actually have any polarity, by their nature. So just get them onto the correct pins and you're all set

The LEDs are light-emitting diodes. Diodes, by their nature, will only let power flow in one direction. So if you plug LEDs in backwards, then they simply won't light up when they're supposed to. No harm done, just flip the plugs over.

 

[orion23]

Look closely at the small black connectors, they are sometimes printed with a tiny arrow which shows the positive wire.

Try only the power switch first, if it doesn't work, simply reverse them!

 

[Leros]

Originally posted by: mechBgon
The power switch and reset switch are momentary-contact switches and don't actually have any polarity, by their nature. So just get them onto the correct pins and you're all set

The LEDs are light-emitting diodes. Diodes, by their nature, will only let power flow in one direction. So if you plug LEDs in backwards, then they simply won't light up when they're supposed to. No harm done, just flip the plugs over.

QFT, thats my method

 

[Felecha]

OK, I follow all that.

I did the power switch only. The triangles I described must be the arrows you mention. So I put the arrow side on the pin PWRBTN# and it came up without a POST (no beep, no news on the screen) then nonsense text "Rabkkp aj` . . . prass a kay". I reversed and got still no POST but "Reboot and Select proper Boot device or . . . and press a key."

 

[Felecha]

I have it set up for a simple no-drives bench test like described in mechBgon's Guide for Newbies this page.

20 pin power plugged in
4 pin power plugged in
mouse
keyboard
MSI RX300HM RADEON X300SE (PCIe x16) installed and attached to monitor
1 stick of 1GB Corsair RAM in 1st slot

I get the heatsink fan and the message on the screen, that's all

 

[Felecha]

I said no POST, part of that was that there is no beep. Doh - can't beep without a speaker? I added the chassis speaker and I do get a beep, but still nothing on the screen about BIOS, RAM, hit this button to get to BIOS setup, etc

 

[Felecha]

Well, I tried hitting F2 even though there was no text yet, and I did get to the BIOS Setup Utility.

Before I go further, is it possible that everything is OK but this board doesn't print the news to the screen as it POST's?

Maybe there is nothing to print if there are no devices yet?

But it should at least show the RAM, shouldn't it? And tell me who the BIOS is and version etc?

 

[Felecha]

I've read other people's problems with this board and one seems to be the BIOS recognizing the CPU. BIOS Setup here shows

Processor Type: AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 3800+

There are also mentions of memory mode, and I have one stick in there and BIOS says

Total Memory: 1024 Single-Channel Memory Mode
DDR1 : 1024MB/166MHz (DDR333)

BTW it's BIOS Version 939Dual-SATA2 BIOS P1.20

And some mention PSU. mine is a brand new FSP AX-450-PN

 

[Felecha]

Well, moving on. I decided it wouldnt hurt to go ahead and attach the devices and see. Sure enough, it boots to HD1 (Windows XP).

But it gives me the screen saying it did not start successfully. It lets me choose Safe Mode or Last Known Good, or Normally. No matter which I choose it goes dead after a couple of seconds. I can hear the hard drive spin down.

So then it starts over and boots and dies and boots and dies and ...

 

[Felecha]

I was wondering of course about the Windows activation thing. I understand that XP will let you make some changes in your hardware but if it's too radical it will object when it boots to new stuff. I expected it would at least go to a screen with a skull and crossbones and a frownie face, and I was ready to call the hotline and explain and get a new activation code. But is this what happens if you replace a motherboard (and new CPU and new video card and ram? I put in as many of the old devices as I could, the NIC even though the new board has onboard LAN, the sound card even though there is onboard sound, and the 4-port UBS2 card I had even though this board has 4 USB2 ports. Hoped it would add up to a reasonable alibi.

 

[Felecha]

Well, here's another clue

I have 2 hard drives, the second is 40gb of storage for the Windows system and 40gb for a Linux partition - RedHat 9. I tried booting to Linux and got a failure with text about

do_ide_setup_pci_device

and other stuff.

I wonder if there is something in Linux too about finding new IDE controllers to talk to . . .

 

[Felecha]

Thought I would try other things.

I created a boot floppy according to instructions on Microsoft. Failed the same way

Then I put in the XP Pro CD and booted from that. Same failure.

 

[Felecha]

Is this a problem with the drivers for the IDE Controllers? If so why can HD1 even begin to boot? I get as far as the GRUB loader and the Windows apology for the inconvenience, and all that is on HD1.

I have a CD from ASRock with drivers etc. If the ones I want are on that, how do I get to them without an OS already booted?

The manual is very little help

 

[mechBgon]

But it gives me the screen saying it did not start successfully. It lets me choose Safe Mode or Last Known Good, or Normally. No matter which I choose it goes dead after a couple of seconds. I can hear the hard drive spin down.

So then it starts over and boots and dies and boots and dies and ...

Windows won't adopt your new motherboard without special preparations, so no surprise if Windows won't boot up. Time for a fresh installation of Windows

Well, I tried hitting F2 even though there was no text yet, and I did get to the BIOS Setup Utility.

Before I go further, is it possible that everything is OK but this board doesn't print the news to the screen as it POST's?

If the motherboard isn't displaying the traditional POST screen stuff, but you want to see it, then disable the Full Screen Logo or whatever it's called by ASRock, this is a BIOS setting.

I was wondering of course about the Windows activation thing. I understand that XP will let you make some changes in your hardware but if it's too radical it will object when it boots to new stuff.

If it's OEM-version Windows, then this would be a pretty clear-cut case of needing to buy a new license anyway, you've replaced the core hardware that the old license was married to. If you have retail-boxed Windows, non-OEM, then you can reinstall it at will on any new system you want to, though

 

[Felecha]

Windows is from a group license at work. Since I work at home a lot they let me use one here.

You mean a fresh install? Is that the only way to get it to make friends with the hardware. If I gotta I gotta, but it will take the rest of the day and into the night, I'm afraid. I have all the data, but lots of programs to install and configure, and all the Windows Updates. I have the XP Pro with SP2 disk here, but I didn't bring everything home in the MSDN kit. Wish I had . . .

 

[Felecha]

Without preparation? Is there something I could have done in advance?

 

[raanemaan]

I would reinstall windows and then install mb drivers.

 

[Felecha]

And, mechBgon, I went ahead and moved from the bench to mounting the board in the case. Alas, it looks like the IO Shield with all the springies isn't getting pushed all that tight against the ports. There's only one orientation that works, and it snaps into place so it doesnt look like there's any adjustment, and the board is screwed to the standoffs so . . . I don't know if there's any way to get it tighter. Just looks like a loose fit.

Actually I gotta start over, there's a fat EMI spring that's sticking into the LAN port, obviously I should have bent it back before sliding the board in. While I have it apart, would it work to sort of bend the shield a bit, concave it some, for a tighter fit? Does it matter really? Just looks not so good for the parallel port to be sticking out only half its depth, for instance

 

[Felecha]

Again, you mean clean install, not plain old reinstall?

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: raanemaan
I would reinstall windows and then install mb drivers.

Me too. But if you want to try another way first, Felecha, try Microsoft's "in-place upgrade" instructions: How to perform an in-place upgrade (reinstallation) of Windows XP.

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: Felecha
And, mechBgon, I went ahead and moved from the bench to mounting the board in the case. Alas, it looks like the IO Shield with all the springies isn't getting pushed all that tight against the ports. There's only one orientation that works, and it snaps into place so it doesnt look like there's any adjustment, and the board is screwed to the standoffs so . . . I don't know if there's any way to get it tighter. Just looks like a loose fit.

Actually I gotta start over, there's a fat EMI spring that's sticking into the LAN port, obviously I should have bent it back before sliding the board in. While I have it apart, would it work to sort of bend the shield a bit, concave it some, for a tighter fit? Does it matter really? Just looks not so good for the parallel port to be sticking out only half its depth, for instance

I wouldn't let the fit bug me too much, but make sure to get that top-rider EMI spring on top of the block where it belongs.

 

[Felecha]

Well now it's really getting interesting. Thought I would see about the Reinstall option, put in my XP disk, set BIOS to boot to CD, and it came up with the gibberish - prass a kay. By now I have the board mounted, not sitting out on the desk (I actually left it on the desk for the first attempts at adding the hard drives to the equation)

So I wondered if mounting it changed something - grounded something that would not be grounded just lying on a box on the desk.

I reversed the Power SW connector and it went back to English but when it booted to the CD the prompt was in gibberish and flickering. I reversed it again and it came up in English from the CD boot, but still flickering. I sat and looked and wondered what now, and after a short time it went on to the GRUB Loader screen.

Started over one more time and finally got to the Windows Setup screen that I am familiar with but hesitate to go ahead - something is shaky here