Desperate for help with A7N8X Deluxe MB

[Zasha]

Hello everyone

About a month ago I asked for everyone's opinion about what would be a good board to get for a new gaming box I am trying to build. Several people suggested the A7N8X so I looked into that board and, after researching it, I found that once again I agreed that this sounded like a good board for me.

So 3 days ago my A7N8X Deluxe arrived.
yesterday I started the process. I took out my old board and installed the new one in its place with my AMD Athlon XP 1700 cpu.

Since then I have been in a state of trying not to pull out my hair I spent 9 hours straight trying to figure it all out before decided sleep was the best thing. Today I FINALLY managed to get it to acknowledge a modem and this is how I am able to BEG AND PLEAD for WISDOM from ye Experts!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here is some system information:

OS= Windows98 (original)
CPU=AuthenticAMD AMD Athlon(tm) XP 1700
511MB RAM
81% system resources free
Windows-managed swap file on drive C (21558MB free)
Available space on drive C: 21558MB of 6681640MB


Here is a summary of my main problems:

Mainly, when I first installed the motherboard and turned it on most of the onboard things like the LAN and audio and USB etc were unable to be driver installed because the setup program was looking for files that I do not have either on my Win98 CD or in my computer. Files ending in .VXD and .AX etc. (I have a list of some of them - if you need it I will dig it out) So nothing is able to work because of this.

Also my machine runs REALLY SLOW now. There are ALOT of IRQ Conflicts that I have tried to fix but I am told they are not changable even when I try to do it manually. Here is a list of them:

IRQ 5 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering
IRQ 5 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering
IRQ 5 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering
IRQ 5 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering
IRQ 5 PCI OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller
IRQ 5 NVIDIA(R) nForce(TM) Audio Codec Interface
IRQ 5 Standard OpenHCD USB Host Controller
IRQ 11 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering
IRQ 11 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering
IRQ 11 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering
IRQ 11 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering
IRQ 11 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering
IRQ 11 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering
IRQ 11 NVIDIA(R) nForce(TM) MCP Audio Processing Unit (Dolby(R) Digital)
IRQ 11 Standard OpenHCD USB Host Controller
IRQ 11 NVIDIA nForce PCI System Management
IRQ 11 NETGEAR FA311 Fast Ethernet PCI Adapter
IRQ 14 Primary IDE controller (single fifo)
IRQ 14 Standard Dual PCI IDE Controller
IRQ 15 Secondary IDE controller (single fifo)
IRQ 15 Standard Dual PCI IDE Controller

Ia m really at my wits end. I would not consider myself a computer newbi but I am no expert either. Ive built a few systems but Ive never had these kinds of problems(

Its kinda funny - All I wanted to do was to use my old board to make a nice gaming machine for my husband to present to him this Saturday when we have our 11th wedding anniversary. Not only did I manage to mess up MY machine but the machine I was making for him is all screw up too hehe But I will wait to ask you all about THAT. Mine first)

Thanks soo much for your time!!!! ANY thoughts would be GREATLY appreciated!!!

-Zasha

PS I wrote to ASUS but they have not responded(

[Kubie]

Zasha,
It looks like you still have all the controllers and such from your old mobo on there along with the ones from your new. Windows is confused.
Carl

[raftero]

i'm no expert but i see no one has replied to either post.did you use the hd and all components from the original drive?if so did you format the hd?i haven't swaped mb using ;old hd but i remember som;e post abou;t that you might search for until someone answers that knows what to do,sounds lile it is trying to reinstall all the files etc over again.i have an idea but hesitate to give advice.someone will answer be patient.
carl writes faster than i do.

[Zasha]

Thanks!

Thats what I thought too so I removed all the system devices from the device manager and went thru the entire detection process in the hopes of removing ll the old ones.

I have no idea if this was the right way of doing it but I was desperate.

For future reference - and in case I shouuld do it again, How would one go about removing the old MB files?

Currently in the device manager there are ONLY files listed for THIS MB. But maybe they are hidden somewhere else confusing things?

Thanks again

-Zasha

[Zasha]

Thank you Raftero Its SOOOO wonderful to know there are people willing to help!

[wolfie]

best to to a clean install. reformat and put windows back in. like kubie said its confused.

wolfie

[Zasha]

Argh Reformat the HD? But I need the stuff thats on it
I will do this if thats the last resort but even after I reformat and install it fresh what will happen when it looks for:

NDIS.VXD
NTKERN.VXD
MMDEVLDR.VXD
WDMAUD.AX
KSINTERF.AX
and all those other files that I don't have?

-Zasha

THANKS SO MUCH for your advice!!!! I am feeling less lost!

[wolfie]

if you reformat everything will go in clean, you "shouldnt" have any problems

wolfie

[Zasha]

Thanks I will start the backup process then

i noticed you have the same board on your system - What OS do you use? I am worried that it is because I have win98 (not SE or ME - the Original)

[LawyerRon]

Zasha,
A "clean" install of WIN98 after a hard drive format should definately get the ball rolling. "SE" is superior to 98 First Edition, but it you go get all the Critical Updates and driver updates from the Microsoft site, you will be fine. Also, make sure you install the Asus motherboard drivers from the CD after WIN98 is installed.

Post back if you need more help. By the way, that board you bought is definately the best.

[Zasha]

Thanks so much everyone!

I am backing up all my files now (the machine is going SOOO SLOWLY but I hope to have a reinstall done by midnight!

I will write back to report my success - thanks to you all!

Also, I will be writing back because this project was a 2 machine project and they both didn't work out for me so I still have to beg advice about the second machine

That one is an ePoX 8kha+
I installed a new AMD Athlon T-bird 1.1 in it and it beeped furiosly so I turned it off and when i tried turning it on again nothing happened *gasp* - I am hoping the power supply went or something benign. There was no smoke or anything and thats a fairly simple board so i don't know what I could have missed to make it go so bad. The board was functional - I pulled it out of my machine and I left in the memory that went with the board so it wasnt that. ---Oops Im breaking my own rule!

I will write about this problem AFTER I finish the first one

Thanks SOOOOO much everyone!

-Zasha

[borax56]

Have you ran the CD that came with the board?It will have all the drivers that the motherboard needs on it.

[glc]

Before you wipe the drive, try removing the ENUM key. There is a thread in the Tips and Tricks forum describing how to do this.

[Zasha]

Hi all-

Well I finally finished backing up my files onto the 9 CDs they needed and reformatted my hard drive and did a clean install of windows 98 and then I installed the drivers from the CD that came with my board.

Unfortunately it didn't do a single thing except erase my hard drive I am still unable to use any of the onboard things because during the driver install it is looking for files that do not exist on my win98 CD or in my computer. And because of the onboard things, my audio and network card aren't allowed to work - Nor is my graphics card

Unfortunately I need my computer running on the internet and working right so I can meet with my son who lives across the country from me - we meet every friday and if I miss it it makes my week feel long and arduous. At this moment I am close to tears that this drastic measure didn't work and more then a little concerned that something must be REALLY wrong if you guys didn't know the way to fix it

During the install it is still looking for:

KS.SYS
WDMAUD.DRV
KSPROXY.AX
KSINTERF.AX
NTKERN.VXD
NDIS.VXD and a bunch of other files.

I am going to try to catch a little sleep as it is 5am for me now but I will be back at noon to try to get it running before I meet with my son at 5pm. If anyone has any ideas on what I should do I would greatly appreciate it.

Do I need Win98SE? Should I borrow my neighbors to install it then race out and by my own copy if it works?

I am grasping at straws and trying not to burst into tears so any advice you can give me is appreciated

Im not even gonna try to get my gift computer for my husband working by tomorrow at this point

Thanks

-Zasha

[LawyerRon]

Describe the procedure you are using to do the format. What command are you using to format your hard drive?

btw, what city in Calif do you live in?

[wolfie]

was this a name brand computer that came with a restore disk? if it is, that's maybe why it's asking for those other files. and you will need the restore disk to format.

wolfie

[Alfie]

How is the hard drive connected to the motherboard?
Are you using a 80 wire ribbon or standard 40 wire?
If udma 80 wire is it connected blue end to motherboard,black end to hard drive and is the drive set to CS?
As asked,is this a retail Win98se disk?
We will have to start from the beginning and go step to step.

[reboot]

Those files should all be on the disk that came with the motherboard.
What sort of system is this?

[TwoRails]

I just received my A7N8X, and in reading the manual, there are several steps that are Required in setting up this mobo in running Win 98 / ME.

Did you follow the steps on Page 73 in the section of Motherboard Support CD?? It would seem like it won't work if these steps are not followed.....

HTH

TwoRails

PS: hopefully this weekend I'll have time to install mine !

[Zasha]

Hi All

OK - First Thank you TwoRails-I did indeed do this procedure on page 73. It didn't change anything (unless I did it wrong?)

THank you Reboot - Funny thing is I did a file search on my computer AND on the win98CD AND on the Motherboard CD and these two files which are specifically asked for are NOT there:

KS.SYS
WDMAUD.DRV

Maybe I should do an internet search to see what these are....

THanks Wolfie - This is not a brand name computer. This was my first build. Its an AMD Athlon XP 1700 CPU. It used to run on a ePoX 8kha+. THe new Motherboard that is giving me grief is the Asus A7N8X Deluxe. THere are no restore disks.

Thanks LawyerRon. Easy question first Born and raised in SF but exiled to Oakland where I learned there were trees and furry creatures who live in them.

As to the format, I used fdisk from dos in the a drive to delete the primary partition. Then when I rebooted the win98 CD started the format process. It took quite some time.

And Thank you Alfie - I left your question for last since it will probably be th longest answer

The hard drive is connected using an Ultra ATA cable - so 80 pin right? The blue end is on the motherboard and the MASTER black end is attached to the HD which is set to Master.

The win98 CD came with my first computer back in 1998 so it is an OEM version. I do NOT have SE but my neighbor does and I am considering borrowing hers just to see if this would solve the problem. If it does I would buy a retail version. Her version of win98SE came with her computer so its OEM also.

I cant understand what im doing wrong here Thank you all so much for your help.

-Zasha

[LawyerRon]

"The hard drive is connected using an Ultra ATA cable - so 80 pin right? The blue end is on the motherboard and the MASTER black end is attached to the HD which is set to Master."

You are running an 80 wire (40pin) cable, so it sould be set to CS (cable select), NOT master. Blue to the mobo, black to the hhd is correct.

[Zasha]

Thank you But - woudl this cause my onboard devices to not work?

I want to update you a bit. I went ahead and looked up a few of those files on the internet and some of them were indeed Second Edition Windows files. So i went to my neighbors and borrowed that CD and was able to successfully install the ethernet devices. I am on my own machine as I write this BUT the audio is still totally disfunctional and the fact that it is not working right is affecting programs I try to run EVEN though I disabled it hehe. Its odd. Something is still not right

So thats where I am right now

Any thoughts?

Thanks!

-Zasha

[Alfie]

Who is the manufacturer of your hard drive?
Are you using the onboard sound or are you using a sound card with onboard sound disabled?
What irq is the sound using?

[Zasha]

Hi

Well, I flashed the bios then reformated AGAIN and did a clean install of the OEM Win98SE . This seemed to fix some of the problems. The Audio is working now. The ethernet is also working. Both are ONBOARD - I am not using any PCI cards at all.

*** BUT now I am having a weird MEMORY error***
I ran it thru a diagnostic (Norton Utilities 2002) to make sure everything was working because it seems sluggish. This was the result of the memory test:

Testing 20 patterns on 536870912 bytes of memory
Testing memory using pattern with all bits cleared...
Error detected at address 136978432
Test: Failed

I tested it a second and third time after rebooting between each and I got the same message only the address was different each time.

Then I started not being able to open things and the computer went to black screen and said Windows (something-initialization?) security error. You will have to restart your computer.

WHat does THAT mean? Anyone know?
Wouldnt it be funny if after all this I ALSO have memory problems?
If the memory was bad then why am I able to turn it on at all?

The only other thing that troubles me is that everything wants to be on the same IRQs. Here is an excerpt from my system information file:

[Hardware Resources]

[Conflicts/Sharing]

IRQ 5 NVIDIA GeForce3 Ti 200
IRQ 5 PCI OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller
IRQ 5 NVIDIA(R) nForce(TM) Audio Codec Interface
IRQ 5 Standard OpenHCI USB Host Controller
IRQ 5 NVIDIA nForce PCI System Management
IRQ 5 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering
IRQ 5 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering
IRQ 5 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering
IRQ 5 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering
IRQ 5 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering
IRQ 5 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering
IRQ 11 3Com 3C920B-EMB Integrated Fast Ethernet Controller
IRQ 11 NVIDIA(R) nForce(TM) MCP Audio Processing Unit (Dolby(R) Digital)
IRQ 11 NVIDIA nForce MCP Networking Adapter
IRQ 11 NVIDIA USB 2.0 Enhanced Host Controller
IRQ 11 Standard OpenHCI USB Host Controller
IRQ 11 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering
IRQ 11 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering
IRQ 11 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering
IRQ 11 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering
IRQ 11 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering
IRQ 11 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering
IRQ 14 Primary IDE controller (single fifo)
IRQ 14 Standard Dual PCI IDE Controller
IRQ 15 Secondary IDE controller (single fifo)
IRQ 15 Standard Dual PCI IDE Controller


[DMA]

2 Standard Floppy Disk Controller
4 Direct memory access controller
0 (free)
1 (free)
3 (free)
5 (free)
6 (free)
7 (free)


[Forced Hardware]

Forced Hardware
There is no Forced Hardware on this computer.


See what I mean? I don't think its supposed to be like that
but when I try to change them I am told I am not allowed to change that resource.

The MB is the A7N8X Deluxe with a Athlon XP 1700 CPU
The Hard drive is a Maxtor. I am using the onboard audio and ethernet. There is supposed to be a modem on this too but I cant find it.

Thanks again everyone!

-Zasha

[raftero]

i don't appreciate yummy post and i don't the mods will either,this is a family type forum.

[Zasha]

By the time I got here the post was removed - probably a good thing Im sure. I saw notification that someone had written and thought "oh good! Someone knows what I should do next!"

Anyone have any more thoughts on this?

Thanks all

-Zasha

[trulad]

Zasha: I just installed the Asus A7N8X Deluxe MB with an Athlon 1800XP processor and I don't have an onboard modem. Are you sure yours is supposed to have one? Mine has two LAN ports,why I don't know, because one always shows up in the system tray as "unplugged". When I disabled it in BIOS, neither worked. I have WIN XP and the install went smooth.
Trudy

[LawyerRon]

"There is supposed to be a modem on this too but I cant find it."

That board does not have an onboard modem. Perhaps it has an CNR onboard modem riser but that's only a slot.

[glc]

The IRQ issue is due to ACPI - they are all going to stack up on the same IRQ unless you can disable ACPI in the bios - Win98 and ACPI don't always play together nicely.

Memory errors testing with Norton is a known issue, it's meaningless. DocMemory from www.simmtester.com is a better program to use, and it's free.

It's getting to the point where a lot of the new technology just won't accept Win98 very well.

[Zasha]

Hello

Sorry for the long delay I was unable to connect to the internet.
I wanted to update you all who took the time to walk me through this experience.

I tried for a long time to figure out some way to disable the ACPI but things continued to get worse. I had spontaneous reboots and freezes - especially during games - and memory errors.

Finally I was able to get thru to an ASUS Tech person name "Roy". He was very nice and spent well over and hour on the phone with me. He said i shouldnt worry about the ACPI because there was nothing i could do about it and that I should get Windows XP He also told me that my problems were caused by my memory.

It is kinda funny to because when I called the next day to ask him another question I was informed by ASUS that he no longer worked there and that I would have to call a number in Texas if I wanted motherboard tech support (instead of the 1-800# which is bad since I don't have long distance on my phone) Talk about a near miss.

As it turns out I not only had the wrong type of memory but I only had one stick and apparently the A7N8X needs 2 sticks to run a stable system. So I got Crucial to exchange the stick I bought from them for 2 of PC3200. After that things worked better. I was able to run complex graphical progerams without crashes or reboots

Things are still slow and I need to do some ironing out of stuff but it is working I am able to be online

THank you to you all again!

-Zasha