OT: new PC catch-22

[JoeBloe]

Start with new (6-month old), bleeding edge stuff: motherboard, Intel
D CPU, 80Gbyte hard drive, Sony DVD R/W, 500W supply, WinXP Pro.
Major problems:
1) "Intel uCode error...press F1 to continue" no boot from the WinXP CD.
2) Update BIOS to latest available (beta): the uCode error goes away; no
boot.
3) Go into the BIOS setup, first screen: *nothing* recognized; Primary
Master, Primary Slave,Seconsdary Master and Secondary Slave all have the
same message, to the effect "nothing available".

Sounds like a failed BIOS upgrade FLASH burn.

I only get ASUS Mobos. Flashable from a boot CD.

What is yours?

But, in booting up, there is a bit of screen fiddling,

Worrisome. Did you go back into your BIOS settings after the FLASH
and set things up again (not just HD recognition)?

and the
installed hard drive and DVD drive are listed as present.

Interesting. Almost sounds like it has an IRQ conflict on the PCI
PNP bus that it is having trouble arbitrating.

Could also be a MOBO setting for looking at PCI first, before AGP or
PCIx.

The DVD light has a very short blink after that, but the CD is not
accessed.

That may be your master/slave setups. You know the master hard
drive goes on the end of the IDE cable, right? Especially for UDMA.

If you are SATA disregard.

Now, the interesting part: plop in a PartitionMagic (bootable) CD,
and that works!

It should.

Understand, the PartitionMagic CD is old, way before Micro$uck
thought of XP (2002).

So. Try a Knoppix Live CD. It auto-recognizes EVERYTHING
(virtually).

Seems to me that M$ has teamed with the BIOS and board makers to make
sure that one cannot *install* WinXp from scratch on these new computers.

Nope. It may be the Intel CPU ID thing.

But..if you happen to have a computer like that with WinXP installed,
the WinXP is readable and can be used for updates, etc.
So.

So....
How in the h*ll does one start from scratch?

If you have Win XP update, you have to have an OS on the drive to
update it.

If you have the full (fool version j/k) version, you should be
able to install from it. It should state "Press any key to boot from
CD" as the BIOS POST routine finishes, and it hits the disc.

 

[JoeBloe]

The problem ther is that no reseller guarantees anything, and if the
pile of metal they sell you does not work, then you pay for return.
And they do not properly or fully test it and so it works for them
because the setup and conditions are totally different.
So you get back the same POS.

I ALWAYS build my own boxes.

 

[JoeBloe]

The motherboard, CPU and RAM were bought as a "bundle" (do i hear an
echo here?).
That is tanatamount to a guarantee by the seller that they work together.
And indeed, the motherboard was made for the Intel D 2X2 CPU and the
BIOS at that time "worked" with that CPU.
The minor problems (echo again) were that the BIOS initial screen
would not show any installed IDE drives, the boot process showed an
"Intel CPU uCODE error" and it would not boot from a/any WinXP CD.
A BIOS upgrade (to a newer, beta version) solved the uCODE problem
*only*.

It almost sounds like they gave you a bad CPU, and ESD is NOT
typically a concern at these dingledorf operated computer stores.

Many times "bundled" packages are those motherboard they had a hard
time selling, and want to get off their warehouse shelves. The CPU
and RAM are what you pay for, and they eat a little margin dumping off
the bad batch of MOBOs that nobody liked or bought that they bought
hundreds of in anticipation of strong sales.\

The only bundles I buy are the lightning fast gamer packages that
have the same MOBO I would buy were I putting it together piece by
piece.

 

[JoeBloe]

Also, one *can* boot from a hard drive; the problem is that one
*CANNOT* boot from a WinXP CD - making it impossible to install.

You could also try a different disc reader.

Win XP discs ARE bootable.

 

[JoeBloe]

I mentioned (very recently) that my friend had indeed used those
WinXP CDs to install on an older machine (1year to 1.5 years old).
So it is the bleeding edge that is bleeding him; that beta version of
the BIOS did help, but not enough.
Then again, "beta" means either incomplete or not fully tested or both...

Well, that was certainly not a good decision. One should ONLY
install released BIOS files during initial set up routines.

 

[JoeBloe]

or as Cable Select - made no difference).

Cable Select does not function, and the drive data sheet usually
even tells you that. You have OEM cables... cable select is
non-fucntional.

Try placing your hard drive(s) on one IDE channel, and your optical
disc readers on their own, separate IDE channel.

Master goes on the END of the cable. ALWAYS for UDMA. No toying
around about it. Otherwise, you will get tied to PIO (if it works at
all), and THAT could also be the problem.

 

[Robert Baer]

Robert Baer wrote:





You have a problem with the BIOS, IDE cables, or BIOS setup. Check
that you have the newer 80-wire IDE cables, with the correct end going
to the motherboard. It MATTERS, it matters a LOT, as the 80-pin cable
has different grounding configuration at the MB end.

Also check your BIOS setup so the IDE ports are set to "auto".

---

Your complaint about Win98 not booting is noted, but you see MSooft
dropped support for Win98 a while ago, so they're not going to release
any motherboard glue chip drivers for Win98. MB makers might, but it's
still a struggle to get the chip drivers installed without the chip
drivers already running!

More echos: i *said* that i had the 80-wire cables, directly from
ASUS, and while i did not mention it, i have been assembling and fixing
PCs since 1980 as well as doing electronic tech work for over 40 years;
so i do know one end from the other.
And by the same token, "auto" is the only mode i set the BIOS to if
it does not default to "auto" which i see more often now than even 5
years ago.
Will have to use one of the older computers and go thru the OEM
"upgrade" path on installing WinXP so that the drive becomes a "clean"
drive with all programs but no users, no passwords, ready to clone for
the other computers.
What a PITA, as that takes as long as a clean install.
However, each cloned drive then can be quickly configured by the
user, making each one unique and look as if they had done not only a
fresh install but also installed all of that software (saving a goodly
part of a day on installation for each new computer).

 

[Robert Baer]

Sounds like a failed BIOS upgrade FLASH burn.

I only get ASUS Mobos. Flashable from a boot CD.

What is yours?





Worrisome. Did you go back into your BIOS settings after the FLASH
and set things up again (not just HD recognition)?




Interesting. Almost sounds like it has an IRQ conflict on the PCI
PNP bus that it is having trouble arbitrating.

Could also be a MOBO setting for looking at PCI first, before AGP or
PCIx.




That may be your master/slave setups. You know the master hard
drive goes on the end of the IDE cable, right? Especially for UDMA.

If you are SATA disregard.




It should.




So. Try a Knoppix Live CD. It auto-recognizes EVERYTHING
(virtually).




Nope. It may be the Intel CPU ID thing.




If you have Win XP update, you have to have an OS on the drive to
update it.

If you have the full (fool version j/k) version, you should be
able to install from it. It should state "Press any key to boot from
CD" as the BIOS POST routine finishes, and it hits the disc.

Win XP installed fine on the old computers; the new ones do not "see"
the XP CDs.
And these aer OEM CDs.
"Should" and "does" are at least 19 different things.
Going to do a special OEM "upgrade" on one of the older computers
once all of the programs are loaded from it; will result in a copyable
hard drive that copies can be individualized with owners name / password
etc; sort of like what one might get from Smell.

 

[Robert Baer]

I ALWAYS build my own boxes.

And that is what was done here, except the motherboard / CPU / DRAM
were bought as a "working" bundle.
But the kicker was that the requirement was for "the fastest system",
so bleeding edge parts were used; nothing older than 6 months since
factory creation...

 

[Robert Baer]

You could also try a different disc reader.

Win XP discs ARE bootable.

But of course they are ... by *older* systems.

 

[Robert Baer]

Well, that was certainly not a good decision. One should ONLY
install released BIOS files during initial set up routines.

A "released" BIOS version may not be available for another 6 months...

 

[Robert Baer]

Cable Select does not function, and the drive data sheet usually
even tells you that. You have OEM cables... cable select is
non-fucntional.

Try placing your hard drive(s) on one IDE channel, and your optical
disc readers on their own, separate IDE channel.

Master goes on the END of the cable. ALWAYS for UDMA. No toying
around about it. Otherwise, you will get tied to PIO (if it works at
all), and THAT could also be the problem.

Yes, yes, and yes, i *said* i tried everything *INCLUDING* only the
DVD drive as Primary Master (jumpered either as master or as cable
select - made no difference).

 

[MassiveProng]

But of course they are ... by *older* systems.

They are by new systems as well.

You machine is sporting a problem, and it has nothing to do with the
BIOS boy, or anything Billy has up his sleeve.

XP CDs boot up fine on brand new top line hardware.

 

[MassiveProng]

A "released" BIOS version may not be available for another 6 months...

NO! You stated that you updated it once, and then again with a
beta. THT ONE file before the beta, but after the initial IS the most
recent released version, and ruling it out because your stuff didn't
work after putting it in was a mistake. Well... at least installing
the beta was anyway.

I still suspect a CPU or MOBO issue. There are hundreds of pins, and
those non-soldered mechanical links are where failures most often
occur. Have you pulled the cpu and checked its pins? Made sure the
RAM is properly seated, etc.

 

[Robert Baer]

They are by new systems as well.

You machine is sporting a problem, and it has nothing to do with the
BIOS boy, or anything Billy has up his sleeve.

XP CDs boot up fine on brand new top line hardware.

Not true; these three are, as i said (echos still rebounding), are
very recent; both the motherboard and the CPU were only presented for
sale by the manufacturer(s) a few months previous to them being bought,
and even with the most recent BIOS (more echos here) the XP CDs do *not*
boot.

 

[Robert Baer]

NO! You stated that you updated it once, and then again with a
beta. THT ONE file before the beta, but after the initial IS the most
recent released version, and ruling it out because your stuff didn't
work after putting it in was a mistake. Well... at least installing
the beta was anyway.

I still suspect a CPU or MOBO issue. There are hundreds of pins, and
those non-soldered mechanical links are where failures most often
occur. Have you pulled the cpu and checked its pins? Made sure the
RAM is properly seated, etc.

More echos here...the BIOS update (beta) *IMPROVED* the situation; it
*solved* the Intel CPU uCODE error problem.
And the date of that update file was newer than the file
corresponding to the BIOS as shipped.
Yet more echos...there are *three* computers, all the same; to assume
failures like you imply is asinine at minimum; the computers otherwise
worked perfectly (echos and echos...).

 

[MassiveProng]

Not true; these three are, as i said

Yeah, yeah.. your fucking echos are lame when you fail to READ the
responses.

YOUR HARDWARE HAS A PRPOBLEM.

NOT related to configuration! PERIOD.

REALATED TO A FAILED CONNECTION OR CHIP, ETC.

ALL currently released MOBOs boot the goddamned XP CD.

Now shut the **** up!

(echos still rebounding), are
very recent; both the motherboard and the CPU were only presented for
sale by the manufacturer(s) a few months previous to them being bought,
and even with the most recent BIOS (more echos here) the XP CDs do *not*
boot.

IDIOT! LISTEN! That combo DOES BOOT IT.

T H E R E F O R E

Y O U

H A V E

A

P R O B L E M

with what you bought being defective.

It has NOTHING to do with you fantasy ABOUT BILLY TAKING OVER.

S H E E S H ! ! !

 

[MassiveProng]

More echos here...the BIOS update (beta) *IMPROVED* the situation; it
*solved* the Intel CPU uCODE error problem.

Whoopie fucking doo. I'd bet the MOBO maker fucked up at the
HARDWARE level, and all attempts to repair that have failed.

Do you even know what microcode is?

If your answer is yes, then you know that it ALL has to be there.

 

[MassiveProng]

Yet more echos...there are *three* computers, all the same; to assume
failures like you imply is asinine at minimum; the computers otherwise
worked perfectly (echos and echos...).

3... all the same. Are they yours? Are you bopping all around town
looking at others PCs? WHAT?

Sounds to me like your issue is with the MOBO maker.

It was not manufactured to not boot the XP CD. It is likely that it
is a bad design that made it into production.

You say it is the latest and GREATEST. Even though most combo deals
that are NOT the stores TOP combo deal is some lame
"get-it-off-the-shelves" crap they are trying to dump a bad purchase
decision off on someone else with.

WHAT FUCKING MOBO IS IT?

Could also be a memory problem.

Offered in combo or not, not all these fuckers at these stores know
what the **** is going on. You could have crap off brand memory in
there that barely made the spec. Combos rarely offer top name items.

Have you ever seem ECC RAM in a combo offer? I haven't. I had to
BUY mine.

Go have your RAM speed tested at a DIFFERENT store.

 

[Robert Baer]

XP CDs *DO NOT* "boot up fine" on (all) brand new top line hardware.
If you took the time to read what i said, it is *obvious* that, with
*THREE* brand new motherboards acting exactly the same and working
perfectly in all other modes, that it *IS NOT* a "hardware" problem.
It is clear that a decent BIOS is needed to solve that problem!