Assembling My New PC - Need Help+Advise

[OnEsolution]

Hi to all,

For the past months, I have done lots of researched to build my own pc. Finally I have bought almost all stuffs except my DVD decoder card. Still wonder between Creative Labs Dxr3 and Hollywood Plus. Any suggestions on this would be helpfull. Here is my new pc specs:

Asus P3V4X 133FSB 6/1/1 4DIMMS 2EIDE
Pentium lll 733Mhz 133FSB
128Mb
Maxtor 40.9Gb ATA100 7200rpm (Master Primary EIDE on Promise ATA100 Card)
Promise ATA100 EIDE Controller
Voodoo 5 5500 64Mb AGP
SoundBlaster Live! Platinum
Pioneer DVD 115 16x40 EIDE (not install)
Sony CDRW Spressa 10x4x32 EIDE (Master Primary EIDE)
Mitsubishi LS120 EIDE (Master 2nd EIDE)
Zip 250Mb EIDE (Slave 2nd EIDE)
Hawking 56k V90 PCi Modem
Hawking 10/100 Ethernet PCi

I'm thinking to use W98 as my operating platform. Any suggestions?

I have cable modem (road runner) setup at home. I will only use my modem for work purposes only. I will be dealing with lots of graphics and looking forward to purchase another ATA100 hard drive to serve as virtual memory. Possibly 15Gb.

I have a full tower case. Cheesy brand name. But it didn't give me any cuts and bruises to install. Run on 300W Power Supply.

My issue is I am pretty nervous to turn my PC on. I have installed everything and double checked all the power cables, EIDE cables, and PCi card connection. Everything looks tide and good.

Could anyone guide me on how to run my pc and what other stuffs that I need such as start up disk, etc. Currently, I have not installed my DVD drive yet since I don't have my decoder card. Will do when I have one. I really appreciate any advices and guides from you. You may email me as well at onesolution@redzwan.com


Thanks a million.


OnEsolution

[gerrygrit]

If this is a new pc that has never run......this is what I would do.
Remove everything except the Cdrom-Cdrw,Hard Drive,Floppy Drive, and the video card.Turn the pc on and make it sure it posts and using a WIN98 start-up disc install the OS.
This is to make sure everything at that point is working.
Install any drivers for the motherboard that may be necessary.
Then install the SOUND CARD first.Then the video drivers.(If you have an AGP video card,
make sure you leave the PCI slot next to the
AGP slot empty.)
Then install the modem,and each other card individually one at a time.
I know it sounds time consuming(and it may be)but if you install everything at once and install your OS and start having errors you will have to take it all out one at a time anyway to find out where the problem is.

GOOD LUCK!!Keep us posted!

[OnEsolution]

Thanks bro,

I will do so as you suggest. Yes, it is a new PC that has never run. I did put everything in place though. But I will take it off based on what you're suggesting me to do. Post? What do you mean by that. Yes, I have the W98se Starup Disk and W98se software with me. I set my DVD as a master and CDRW as slave, if I disconnected my DVD, do I need to set my CDRW as master?

Yes, I have Voodoo 5 5500 AGP and the next PCi slot is empty. I give a room for it to breathe.

How to setup my HD? It's new and I believe it needs to be format first. If so, how? What kinda of information that I would expect after turn the PC on in terms of BIOS setup, etc. My motherboard is a Jumper Free and I think I will have it stay as it is. What do you think. PLease advise. Thanks.

OnEsolution

[Charliey]

If you really want to be careful, diss connect all the drives and cards execpt video, so that you only have a motherboard, cpu, ram, and a video card. Make sure it will post. If you do it that way you can make sure that none of the drive are the problem if there is one.

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-Charlie

[OnEsolution]

Oh boy.. it a mess

I started up my pc and setup the bios. Did what you guys asked me to. Remove all devices except video card, sound card, cdrw, LS120, and HD. The first attempt execute and setup the BIOS was fine. Once done, I installed Windows98se. Download and do all the Windows stuffs. It worked great. I turned off the pc, installed my network card and my modem, then the issue came.

I update the driver of my network card but my modem doesn't have a driver so Windows set its own driver. It works for the modem. But I installed the new driver that came along with my network card and KEBOOOMMM!!! My Windows screwed up after reboot. It asked and told me that some *.vxd file was missing and could update the SYSTEM.INI file. It asked me to hit any keys to skip so I did. And went to Windows. But once it went to Windows98, an application error message pop up on my screen. It says that its missing a *.dll library file. No clue what that means or what caused it. I assumed it was due to my network card driver. So, how can I fix my problem. I thought of reformat my HD and restart from there again. Will this fix it? Please anyone, help me, help you, help all.


OnEsolution

[theENiGMA]

POST stands for Power On Self Test. THis is what you see when you start up a computer and it counts the RAM and finds IDE devices, etc. If you don't plan to partition the hard drive into more than one section, which I personally don't recommend but others may disagree, then Windows setup will partition and format the drive for you. Just put in the startup disk for Win98, start Win98 setup, and it should take care of everything else. At tht point, the only things you need installed are; RAM, processor, video card, floppy drive, CD-ROM drive, hard drive. All other drives/cards should not be installed until you have a working copy of Windows on the machine. This will save a lot of time with trouble shooting just case case anything goes wrong.
-KEiTH


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Well, I'm off to go look for myself. If I should get back before I return, tell myself to wait for me.

[AndyM]

hi ones.,

My wife is from over by Zanesville so I'll try and help out a neighbor.
First: You might want to cruise over to the How to Build a PC Manual that is available to you at www.pcmech.com. It is very good for step by step stuff. Nice reference to have as a double check when the fear of disaster sets in.
Second: .Dll's are drivers. I think that is an *always* statement. So the most recent install may have knocked out another device from the windows nest. Check the Device Manager settings for conflicts under the Control Panel>System. If you see a yellow exclamation it means you have a conflict. Let us know what you see.

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"I never met a geek I didn't like." -Will Rogers

[AndyM]

BTW OneS.,
Nice Setup! What'd you do, rob a bank?

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"I never met a geek I didn't like." -Will Rogers

[OnEsolution]

Thanks Andy and thanks for the compliment. I'm not thinking about robbing the bank yet. he he.. I have always wanted to make my own pc and i had the chance to do that recently since i became an independet computer reseller. So, bought in bulk cheap and sale. I have some extras and that is what i have up there. Yup! Normally people would end up paying $4+++ or more. With the current opportunity I have, it helps me a lot in saving the greens. So, I did it and gave it a shot.

OK, I'm at work now but I will work on my PC again tonite. Please stay in touch and I will keep you all posted from time to time on how things are. My plan is to reformat the HD and redo the Windows installation. Hope this will work. Wish me luck.


OnEsolution

[AndyM]

Here's a tip for you. I don't know if you have to download drivers form the internet or whether you have them handy on CD. I have found that storage of drivers and such on a separate partition saves a lot of time when I have to reformat and reinstall the OS.
You could set one up before you reinstall.
Also, my order has been video, sound, then NIC. But I am not a tech so there may be a good technical reason for another order. It just seems video seems to be the most troublesome. Talk to you tonight.

[Xayd]

One thing comes to mind here with the vxd and dll errors.

vxd's are drivers, dll's are system config files. If you're getting errors at boot that one is missing, after installing a network card, check this...

Under control panel/network/, you should have a list of things installed. Since you've probably installed the network card and software from your ISP, you'll have some Ethernet stuff, maybe some proprietary components that came with the ISP's software. Otherwise, see what else you have. You need the Ethernet stuff, and the stuff from your ISP, as well as Client for Microsoft Networks. If there are other clients (Netware, MS Family Logon, etc.) remove them. Set the default logon to Client for Microsoft Networks as well. I'm not sure off hand, but 98SE might've had the opportunity to install other ISP software (and network components) like AOL unless you specified otherwise, and if those are there, remove them as well.

Xayd

[OnEsolution]

Thanks Xayd,

I will look into it on that. I remember before the hell broke loose, I saw 3 types of network in the list which are Windows Logon, Microsoft Client, and I can't remember the other. OK, I will delete the other except the Microsoft Client.

But now, I can't even get to my Windows at all. It will hang right after I can see my desktop. It says "Windows Explorer error" something like that. Even I reboot it million times, still the same. I thought of reformat my drive and reinstall the Windows. What you think? What other advise I should take? Please help. Thanks.


OnEsolution

[gerrygrit]

When you boot up the pc and see "STARTING WINDOWS 98",push F8 a few times and you will get another screen.Choose safe mode and you should be able to get into explorer from there.Delete those things that you think are the problem and then re-boot.
If all goes well then the pc should boot normally.

[OnEsolution]

WOOOHOOOOO!!!!

I made it!! It works. Thanks you guys. This is what I did and what had caused the issue earlier. It is really a mess up driver after I installed my network card. The driver supplied in the diskett for some reasons did not work at all. Probably old version. So, I took off the network and modem card and unplugged my zip. That's all I did and left others behind such as HD, LS120, Video & Sound card, and CDRW.

Then, I ran FDISK and removed my DOS partition and recreated a new partition and reformat the HD. Once it's done, I installed the Windows98se and followed the steps. Reinstalled all software and hardware once done. I'm lucky I have 2 PC at home. So, I use the other to download the current driver for my network and modem card and installed in over to my new PC. WALAH!! It works. It solved my shitty problems.

Now, both PC are running smoothly and hooked up on the router. Very very very very happy. Phew! Now I have the confident to go for future project "build my own server".

Thanks guys. You are all have been such a wonderful helper. Learned great things from you. Thank you so much.


OnEsolution

[Charliey]

Just a note for future reference, you dont need to repartition the drive with fdisk, just format it.

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-Charlie