Win2000 rocks for changing motherboards -- Won't boot now...*Update* Fixed it!

[AndrewR]

Just swapped out my MSI 6308 (PIII board) for a K7TPro2 (Duron), and Win2K had ZERO problems changing the resources around with only one reboot!!!. Damn, that's impressive. Win98 always requires four or five, it seems, and even then doesn't always get it right.
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That's what I thought before. NOW, the computer won't start at all. :|

All I did was turn off the system, and I didn't touch ANYTHING inside or outside. The power button does a sum total of nothing (no response from power supply), which is bizarre since everything was fine before. If the mobo is fried, I'm going to be livid.

Any ideas?
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See the bottom -- operator error!!

 

[TGCid]

try putting the same hard drive with win2k into a completely new system, you have to reformat. Windows98, etc. you don't have to.

 

[Sunner]

They both suck for changing mobo's.

 

[gamingbuddy]

actually, I have found winME to be pretty good about changing motherboards, but in my case a whole new setup

Intel I810 > VIA KT133 :Q

everything was detected and worked fine.

 

[Eli]

I'm going to do a fresh install of win2k when I get my Tbird/MSI K7T Pro2, cause I'll also havea new IBM 75GXP 45gb.


Hey, where'd you get your Pro2?

 

[AndrewR]

Mwave.com -- was $113 or something.

Ok, edited. :|

 

[Looney]

Are you guys crazy? I ALWAYS do a clean install after a motherboard change... you folks are the first i've ever heard of doing that without doing a clean install.

 

[pyr]

BeOS is really nice for this. You can install onto a drive, put that drive into another computer, it will boot and detect all your BeOS compatible devices and just work with no reboots. you could actually install BeOS on a large removeable drive and carry around your whole OS with you if you wanted to. never have to worry about changing anything again.

Ya I know this thread isnt about BeOS, but still.....

 

[AndrewR]

MoralPanic: I used to do the same thing (clean install) until I got lazy. It does work most of the time. I've swapped out several motherboards on Win98 without any problems, but I've also had some that didn't cooperate. If you remove all of the motherboard resources from Device Manager, shut down, install the new board and boot up, it will just add the new mobo resources. It takes multiple reboots though and can be problematic (my problem with my PIII system is that the DMA controller is screwing up the AGP slot -- need to get some new VIA drivers to fix it).

I am going to do a clean install on that system when I have the time, but I didn't want to mess with that last night. I will also be moving a faster hard drive into the Win2K system, but that will require several hours worth of effort (need to sort through data) which I didn't have last night.

Now I just need to figure out why the Duron system is completely dead. *sigh*

 

[Thorn]

Try unpluging the power cord from the back of the PS and waiting 10min... then plug it back in and hit the power button. I had a similar experience, and for some reason that seemed to fix it for me.

 

[office boy]

I have to disagree. I just did the same thing (with i810 to i815) and even after removing all the devices, and rebooting, I still got bsod's on startup. I tried win2k repair (nope) and safe mode (nope) deleting "enum" key in registry (nope (won't delete)) nothing worked, so I had to reformat/reinstall.

 

[AndrewR]

Thanks, Thorn -- I'll try that.

office boy: I have never had Win98 work as easily for changing mobos as this one with Win2K -- not even remotely close. Like I mentioned, sometimes Windows just WON'T do it no matter what you try -- been there several times. However, this one worked well for me, and it was exceptionally painless (well, except for this current deadness -- cannot be a Win problem though).

Maybe it was because you were going from a board with a bunch of integrated peripherals to one without? I think it's actually related to the alignment of the planets...

 

[SUOrangeman]

Hehe, I did a mobo swaperoo on an NT4 platform and ended up reinstalling. Not pretty at all.

-SUO

 

[BDawg]

It's the only way when your computer mfg only shipped the POS "Windows Recovery CD."

 

[superbaby]

I swapped out my BH6 this weekend for an Asus P3V4X and I learned the hard way that Win2k Pro does not like this one bit.

I had to pull out all my cards (because they had existing IRQ conflicts) and swap them around for a stable, IRQ-conflict free configuration. Needless to say I was pretty pissed.

Then I had to reformat and reinstall.

:|

 

[ArkAoss]

hey might be a low power situation. possibility with a p3 to duron switch. know how to test the psu without a mobo? with it plugged in short green to black. dont be stupid dont get yourself killed, its tricky, but thats my simple disclaimer.

if the psu works, try resetting the bios, then try a floppy boot,

 

[AndrewR]

PSU should be fine -- it's a PC Power & Cooling (235w) that has run everything from K6 to K6-2 to Celeron (366@550 x 2), to Celeron II (533@800) without any problems. It ran the Duron just fine the first boot with no instability or complaints. I have a 3dfx Voodoo3 3500, NIC, CD-ROM, and one 10GB 5400 rpm drive -- cooling is two 80mm fans, Taisol HSF on the Duron. I'll add an SB Live when it's running well enough.

Since the same PS has run two hard drives (7200rpm), two optical drives (Plextor SCSIs), GeForce, OC'ed Celeron, SB Live, NIC, and two 80mm fans plus a bay cooler, I think it's putting out decent power. Something to consider though since it is only 235w. I'd think it was the problem if it hadn't worked the one time.

I'll try resetting the BIOS -- had that problem before now that I think about it (though I did go in there and reset some settings already).

 

[Nikepete]

It could be an intermittent short of the mobo and the case. Try to remove the mobo and start it outside the case with just the CPU, memory and video card. As a precaution I'd reseat the CPU and the memory as well.

 

[Looney]

Could be a dead bios!

 

[Looney]

Ooooh, now that i read Nikepete response, check the mobo and make sure you have ALL the stands on the mobo. I had a stand missing one time, and i had a dead mobo as well... apparently got shorted... but all i had to do was put the stand back on and everything went smooth.

 

[erub]

heh, I copied win2k using partiton magic to a new hard drive, and it wouldn't boot with that either - had to format and reinstall - good thing I really like win2k

 

[BDawg]

AndrewR, when you mention motherboard resources, what exact items are you talking about?

 

[ModemMix]

i once rma'ed a board and after replacing the bad board with the same board and configuriung all cards into the same slots and using all the same resource settings in the bios. Win2k wouldnt boot and required a full reinstall.

 

[randypj]

I've never had a problem swapping mobos....even from VIA to BX chipset, in W9x. It is helpful to know what enum to delete from the hardware key in the registry, and to have current drivers handy. I haven't reformatted since I installed W95a to W95b to W98SE. I've gone through at least 3 motherboards on this install.

Moralpanic--Ya get out much?
--Randy

 

[AndrewR]

BDawg: Everything (or nearly everything) under the System Devices listing in Device Manager (the one right before USB at the bottom).

Well, it looks like it was a case of gross OE (Operator Error). The problem was the power button cable to the motherboard in the front. My case, a PC Power & Cooling midtower, has TWO different wires coming from the power button in front, and I never quite know which is the right one. I thought it was the blue one, and that worked the first time. I think, however, that I only put it over one of the pins (it started up right when I plugged it in, which was odd).

So, I put the brown wire on, and it started being funky. I went back to the blue to no avail. Well, I finally made SURE that installed the blue wire properly and cleared the BIOS -- lo and behold the computer boots just fine.



Thanks for the help, fellas.