Got me a HUGE problem....

Chinbobbabobot · Nov 11, 2005, 09:15 PM

Okay, so here's my problem.

Just installed a new motherboard on my computer. It's a ULi motherboard, brand new stuff. Called a 939 Dual SATA 2 from ASRock. It has an AGP and PCI-E x16 slot, got it because I wanted to keep my AGP 6800GT, but still buy an Athlon 64 andf be able to keep the option to upgrade to PCI-E in the near future. I mean, if I got a PCI-E x16 mobo I would have had to get a new graphics card....

www.asrock.com. Look up the 939Dual SATA 2 on the side of the website.

Problem is, this is supposed to be an upgrade, but when I run Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War, F.E.A.R., Half-Life 2, Garry's Mod or any other game, the whole thing messes up on me. I have a brand new Athlon 64 3200+ and yet this thing slows down to a stop.
Text on game menus appear like solid white blocks instead of words. The soldier that normally stands there on the Warhammer 40k menu is painted with these horrible textures like something out of an NES game.
I downloaded the AGP graphics driver from the ASrock website but it still didn't do anything. Can anybody help me? It's driving me up a wall since my older hardware- an Nforce2 mobo with an Athlon XP- did a lot better. And I'm not really an expert with sofware either. I used Driver Cleaner software to get rid of old drivers too...
I dunno. I really, really need help.

Rasta Monsta · Nov 11, 2005, 10:33 PM

Sounds like a chipset driver problem to me.

One question though. . .what did you use DriverCleaner on, exactly? You didn't transfer your old Windows install to the new MB, did you? If you did, that is the problem. . .you need a clean install of your OS.

rasta

Tipstaff · Nov 11, 2005, 10:33 PM

First up, welcome to the forums

When you installed the new motherboard did you do a fresh install of Windows? I'd recommend doing so if you haven't as switching motherboards using the same Windows install can cause more problems than you might realize. My advice would be to do a complete reinstall of your Windows install.

Edit: sorry, Rasta. You beat me to it.

If you did reinstall then there are a couple things to be aware of. Sometimes certain drivers need to be installed before other drivers. Problem is that the motherboard manufacturers don't always tell you what. Rule of thumb is always latest version of Windows, latest service pack, chipset driver, most recent Direct X, then everything else. However, in the AsRock Dual boards case you want to install the onboard video before you install the external video card drivers.

One of the big features with AsRocks "Dual" boards isn't only that they have a PCIE and AGP slot, but that they also allow dual monitor support by activating the onboard video as well as whatever video card you have installed at the same time. It could be that the onboard video drivers are interferring with the Nvidia ones. You might want to try reinstalling the onboard video drivers (even trying older ones), as well as reinstalling the Nvidia ones.

PangingJr · Nov 12, 2005, 02:38 AM

have not checked out the motherboard spec thoroughly. but it seems like a decent motherboard (and very reasonable price too. i think, the graphic cards upgradable that makes it very interesting. it should be good to use it for upgrading or even a new building for an AMD +3000/+3200 CPU system without spending a whole lot of money.). the BIOS setup utility is also simple.

if my assumption is right the cause of problem that you're having are laying around somewhere in the Windows and/or one of the softwares installed.

try using default option/setting of the BIOS except set the Primary Graphics Adapter option to scan AGP first, and i believe the motherboard has no onboard graphic device so it won't have any option to disable it in your BIOS. and then reformat and clean install Windows and motherboard drivers again. also use an official drivers for your AGP graphic card. try it again and see what happens?

ASRock 939Dual-SATA2 user manual.
http://www.asrock.com/Drivers/Manual/939Dual-SATA2.pdf

Drivers and BIOS download page.
http://www.asrock.com/support/Downlo...Dual-SATA2.htm

Chinbobbabobot · Nov 12, 2005, 07:29 AM

I'll try to elaborate a little more to see if I can pin the problem down better.

A friend helped me install this stuff. We deleted the old mobo drivers after we installed the new motherboard but I don't think that was a problem. Hopefully. We installed all the new ones, but for some weird reason when I started to install the AGP graphics drivers from the driver disc that came with it, it told me I needed to install the 'graphy driver' first. I think this was probably just a weird message written by a bunch of guys with poor english but it made me wonder why it was telling me to install the graphics drivers before, well, the graphics drivers. So we did that, and it seemed fine. But then I found out about the problem with the games and we deinstalled the nvidia drivers- I had 85.81 and I'd heard that those drivers can mess up older cards. They only seemed to benefit the 7800 GTX anyway.
Then we ran Driver Cleaner. The thing pinpointed a set of drivers all labeled 'nvidia' so he deleted those, then we went and reinstalled the 78.01 drivers.
I also went and tried to install directx9.0c, but I think I already had it going.
The only drivers I downloaded from the website were the AGP graphics drivers, but I don't know if downloading the other ones will do anything.

So, what else should I do besides reinstalling windows? Did I accidently delete the motherboard drivers with Driver Cleaner, do you think? Should I also delete and reinstall DirectX? Thanks for the help.

PangingJr · Nov 12, 2005, 08:18 AM

i would not have told you to do that otherwise. i somehow believed in this case you ought to try again by reformatting the operating system partition(s) and clean install Windows, motherboard and AGP drivers.

ReDGuiTaR · Nov 12, 2005, 12:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tipstaff

One of the big features with AsRocks "Dual" boards isn't only that they have a PCIE and AGP slot, but that they also allow dual monitor support by activating the onboard video as well as whatever video card you have installed at the same time. It could be that the onboard video drivers are interferring with the Nvidia ones. You might want to try reinstalling the onboard video drivers (even trying older ones), as well as reinstalling the Nvidia ones.

There is no onboard video on this MoBo . I think you want to say that you can use both AGP and PCI-E at the same time since both slot are controlled per a separate chip on the MoBo.
This is why this MoBo is so intersting this is the only one MoBo where you got true AGP and PCI-E support on it .

BTW, Im now in da 500 club !

Tipstaff · Nov 12, 2005, 11:30 PM

Sorry 'bout that guys. For some reason I was mixing up the feature of the Intel Dual board with this one.

What I meant to say was that in this case you need to make sure to install the AGP driver first before the actual video card drivers whether you use the AGP or PCIE slot.

Having said that though, I still recommend a fresh install of Windows. Unless you do some preperation before removing the old motherboard you can run into a lot of problems when you do the first bootup with the new mobo. Even then that's no garuantee since even the slightest thing can send Windows, especially XP, into a hissy fit (as in a BSOD fit). In particular, going from a system that has no SATA controller to one that does (in particular, Intel mobos which incorporate the SATA controller into the chipset have a tendancy to take a nose dive) can really be frustrating.