Building your own computer is fun?....

[captmix]

After a lot of internet research and buying a couple of books on building, plus getting PC Mech’s CD on building, I decide to do the deed.

Parts ordered from several sites so it took a little bit of time to assemble the components. From the research I decided on setting up a RAID 1 array.

1. Assembling the machinery was no problem at all. The trouble started with installing XP Pro when it said to push F6 for VIA RAID drivers. Had those, in fact on two different floppies. Wouldn’t work. Posted on this site with problem but couldn’t get it resolved. After 3 days and a couple more downloads of drivers on floppies, I called a shop for help.

2. They got XP installed including VIA Raid 1 and gave me a floppy with the drivers they use. Got the machine home, booted up and got a desk top with lines, no icons or task bar. XP would properly boot through the logo and Welcome but then just lines over the desk top picture.

3. Dang! Called shop and the geek said to hit F8 on boot, then a BIOS “pop-up” appears with several choices for starting. Select “enable VGA mode,” then choose XP and sure enough up came XP bright and clear! Everything was there including the “nag” to register.

4. Began to experiment with both DVI and VGA cables to the LCD screen and either worked with F8 and select VGA mode. (?) This is not right. Took it back to shop and their diagnostic indicated that the problem was in the video card. Drivers were not loading correctly. All hardware okay including RAM stick. Why would it work properly going through F8 but not the normal start?

5. The one component bought locally was the ATI 9800 Pro card which the store exchanged. Got the new card home, installed, and being a tad tense, fired it up. Up came the XP logo, Welcome, and then a BSOD. Damn! Could only see the blue screen momentarily with something about “shutting down to prevent damage.” Then it would restart with the same result.

6. Used the old computer for more internet research on what this problem might be. No help on any of the sites, couldn’t match this problem. I didn’t know what in the hell to do so back to the shop.

7. They wiped the hard disks, rebuilt the RAID 1 array, and got XP reinstalled. Said some file was corrupted but didn’t know what it was. (I had previously installed Roxio Easy Media Creator 7 along with a couple of other programs the short time I had it home). This by getting in through the back door so to speak pushing F8.

8. I am military retired and the additional costs that were building up for an already expensive machine was taking some chunks out of that retirement check. My wife was getting concerned too about the justification for this expense...”the old computer still works doesn’t it?”

9. But the past 4 days have been great, updated everything, got Quicken and e-mail working. Just happily fiddlin’ with my new computer. But…this morning couldn’t get onto the internet with my LAN Broadband. NOW WHAT? Nothing showing amiss in Device Manager, restart didn’t help. Well, maybe the wireless broadband is down as sometimes happens here in Colorado. Just for the heck of it I plugged the cable into the old ‘puter and there was the internet! Dang again! The frustration was building faster than what it took to build the “new build!” The only thing I could think of was to uninstall the Marvell LAN drivers and reinstall from the mobo CD. That worked. But why did it quit?

10. I have learned a lot about computers but that experience level would hardly reach a half inch on the bottom of the chart. Would I do it again? Yeah, I guess so.

Tom Mix

ASUS K8V SE Deluxe
AMD Athlon 64 3200+
ATI 9800 Pro
Enermax 425W Noisetaker PSU
SATA Maxtor 120GB X 2 HDD
Kingston DDR400 512M
Kingwin KT-424 aluminum case w/3 fans
Memorex Dual format DVD recorder*
XP Pro full version
Samsung SyncMaster 191t+ LCD*
Mitsumi Floppy drive*

*From old computer

[pam123]

Ouch!!!
And the ATI continuous reboot problem as well.
This should help with the wireless quitting on you : http://forum.pcmech.com/showthread.p...hreadid=100067
Either Red's post or the solution at the end of the article.
The article is about laptops but as the owner of a cutting edge desktop you're also going to have the same problem.

[captmix]

Here are a couple more issues…

One problem I forgot to mention above is each time I booted I would get the message;

“Registry Recovery, One of the files containing the systems Registry data had to be recovered by use of a log or alternate copy. The recovery was successful.”

What was it? I didn’t know. So I searched the internet for a Registry repair program and found “Registry Mechanic” which had some good reviews. Installed that and found I had 51 problems in the Registry. This software fixed it. That’s what it said!

But the next time I booted up I got the same registry message along with the Registry Mechanic’s scan info saying there were no problems found!

But later this Registry Recovery message has not appeared again.

Then this morning on boot up came the lines on the screen again! Damn! Had to restart by going in through F8 and choosing “enable VGA mode.” The screen icons were huge and desk top all out of proportion. The ATI drivers/settings were gone!

Also a block saying "Create DCO Failed Natural Color Load."

At this point I thought again about putting a .45 round through this machine as I had posted before.

Reinstalled the ATI Catalyst software and got all the settings back. Rebooted normal.

Checked Event Viewer for that error and it said “mrtRate service failed. The system cannot find the file specified.” Made a google search for this error and there are a lot of issues with this problem. Twice I saw a reference to Intuit’s Quicken 2004 which I do have installed. But the last few days this machine booted normally until now.

Why would the drivers/settings for ATI disappear? Where did they go?

Why is the computer seemingly unstable? Is there a simple issue that would be a simple fix…or is it a serious problem?

Tom

[captmix]

Red's problem with Wi Fi does not apply here, I don't have wireless installed.

Tom

[pam123]

I miss read your wireless comment then, my apologies.

It sounded like you might have a bad motherboard but the one you've picked has a really good reputation for stability and ease of set up. Not just from the pros at places like Anandtech but from the ordinary guys who write in user reviews at newegg. What you've described is not usual.

From all you've said, most especially the corruption of XP on install, your problem started before you added any other program or driver to the computer and everything points to the raid array.

A registry healing program won't solve this for you but testing your SATA drives, one at a time, with the manufacturer's diagnostic would tell you where the trouble is.
Download the program from the manufacturer's website and copy it to floppy to test the drives.
There is also the definite possibility that what you really need are new cables for the raid array.

I understand the urge to put the computer out of your misery but I can't condone shooting it.
RMAing hard drives or getting new cables is much more satisfying (Of course kicking the thing is always a possibility, let the punishment fit the crime!).