fresh install of XP sp2 acting funny

CDsDontBurn · Dec 28, 2006, 04:11 PM

So i upgraded my sister's computer the other day (specs below), and i've installed winXP sp2 twice already. Each time, the same symptoms occur. What happens is that whenever I go to open up My Computer, it just hangs there looking for all the devices and whatnot that are there. The only way around it is to plug in a USB flash drive into the computer. Upon doing so, it will display only the flash drive and nothing else. It's not until some time later that it works properly.

Another thing that happened on the previous install of windows was that despite the machine having 1Gb of RAM installed, it only recognized 128Mb. I later cleared the CMOS and it was able to recognize the full 1Gb again. I found that a bit odd.

I checked for a BIOS update on the MoBo, but the one it came with is the most upto date.

The chipset and gfx drivers are the most upto date, nForce 6.86 chipset drivers and forceware 93.71 drivers are installed. Drivers were installed in the following order: chipset > gfx > sound card > network > printer > windows updates.

AMD x2 4200+
1Gb (2x512Mb) Corsair XMS XL
MSI Neo4-F MoBo (MS-7125)
eVGA 7900GS KO
Athena 520w PSU
D-Link Wireless card (DWL-G520)
Sound Blaster Live! sound card
1x WD 36Gb Raptor
1x WD 60Gb 7200RPM 8Mb buffer
Lite-On DVD-RW
Lite-On DVD-ROM
HP PSC 1200 printer

***temeteus82*** · Dec 28, 2006, 04:48 PM

this is weird in deed, since i have the same motherboard they your sister has .... ...
only thing that i can imagine is bad ram... but that might not bee the case here .... anyway I gonna keep my eye on this thread...

CDsDontBurn · Dec 28, 2006, 04:52 PM

i HIGHLY doubt it's bad RAM. It's the same RAM that i was using in my machine up until i upgraded to the 2Gb OCZ stuff (located to the left). The ram was used in her previous machine, and migrated to her new one.

Anyways.....i just saw another weird issue. Whenever i try to create a shortcut by method of right click > send to > Desktop (create shortcut), it also tends to hang right there. The mouse is still responsive, and i can open up other windows and stuff, but those new windows have limited response because of that.

Maybe i should install winXP x64 on her machine

PangingJr · Dec 28, 2006, 04:58 PM

there are several causes for the "Long delay before files appear in My Computer in Windows XP" problems...
each will need different corrective action. give this below link a go, see if you can find a solution for your's

slow response from explorer
>http://groups.google.com/group/micro...rch+this+group

CDsDontBurn · Dec 28, 2006, 07:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PangingJr

there are several causes for the "Long delay before files appear in My Computer in Windows XP" problems...
each will need different corrective action. give this below link a go, see if you can find a solution for your's

slow response from explorer
>http://groups.google.com/group/micro...rch+this+group

i believe i have found the problem. after reading through some of those posts, some people were reporting that it was related to their printer. Although the printers people had listed were not the same model as my sister's printer, i didn't think that would have been the problem. I then decided to simply turn off the printer to try it anyways. Imediately thereafter, everything worked perfectly fine. That is really odd though. I don't understand why a printer would cause that to happen though

and thanks for the link PangingJr

PangingJr · Dec 29, 2006, 07:12 AM

No problem, CDsDontBurn.

Scytale · Dec 29, 2006, 12:42 PM

<~ Judas

so the printer is EPP (old parrelle port?)

i've found numerious times that old style printers with newer machines, have a tendancy to seem to poll the printer all the freaking time causing this, OR just work like crap...

USB is generally always better..

but even in the USB case, and it still does this, i would seriously send an email to the manufacturer and let them know something is definitely wrong...

[hobo]eclipse · Dec 29, 2006, 01:18 PM

CD's just curious and not to hijack, but did you install the nForce4 IDE and SMBus Drivers, when i got this new board i did on my first install, I installed to the onboard nForce4 SATA and didnt use a driverdisk, after booting in to windows and applying the newest nforce4 drivers,(mind you XP x64) both my SATA drives show up as removable storage? Is this because SATA are hotswapable? It only happened after i applied the nforce4 drivers, On a fresh install i avoided the IDE and SMBus driver from the package and all is well, is this aknown nforce4 issue and does your sisters come up this way after the nVidia driver install? or is this how it should be because SATA are hotswapable, just seems a lil odd to have your bootdrive hotswapable, ive since just installed to a 40 GIG IDE i have and after i get comfortable with this board and hadware and overclockability I'll give the SATA a go again, I had an issue where i was unable to start any D3D app because of "Internal driver error, Device present but not functional" or something to that effect, googling the only thing i seen was recomendation to use DC and reinstall, i did this numerous times and still had the error, thought maybe me playin with my FSB/RAM speed and booting may have done this and wasnt sure if the SATA was corupting things or had when i was playing,ill prolly try to get a 10,000 RPM drive after awhile.

PangingJr · Dec 29, 2006, 05:38 PM

where is your DH cookie Judas?
should consider having the user profiles of your browser with you on a USB flash drive or something.

Scytale · Dec 29, 2006, 06:32 PM

just lazy panging

just lazy here...

bug77 · Dec 29, 2006, 06:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CDsDontBurn

... That is really odd though. I don't understand why a printer would cause that to happen though

...

Flashback to Win95 presentation: "It's gonna see the new printer, it's gonna say 'Hey! I see a new device, it's gonna load in the appropriate drivers... Oooooh! [blue screen of death, chaos]". Remember that?

CDsDontBurn · Dec 29, 2006, 09:17 PM

@ Judas: the pritner is a USB printer.

@ hobo: i don't remember what the order of the chipset drivers was when i installed them. I do know though, that i did install the IDE drivers and one other one (not the audio, and not the ethernet). The drive does not show up as a "removable device" under My Computer, but whenever i go to the "safely remove USB hardware" thing in the task manager, the raptor shows up as a removable device.

I've been working on that thing for about 3 days getting all the software (windows updates, anti-spyware, anti-virus, etc.) installed, schooling my sister on hard-drive management, installing games (still need alot more to go still =\), and i'm still not done.

So far though, my sister is very happy

. She was playing some Black & White 2 earlier. She was playing the game at 800x600 resolution, and i schooled her on that too, lol. I had her pause the game, and i increased the resolution to 1280x1024 (the max her monitor does) and when the screen refreshed, she was like OMG! lol. her wolf character in the game was all fuzzy and stuff instead of some solid block looking thing.

I'm going to benchmark that thing too. I want to know how it stands

. I'd like to OC it some as well, but i'm green when it comes to OCing A64 machines. Maybe i'll just OC the gfx card. Coolbits2 rocks

, lol.

I'm just sad now though......her computer is FINALLY better than mine

. oh well.....later on this year i'll upgrade my machine. the e6700s should be fairly cheap by then

. lol

Tipstaff · Dec 29, 2006, 10:13 PM

Funny you should mention this, CDs. I just had the same problem with a clients machine last night. After a good hour of looking into it I had the problem come down to it either being WinFax, the program that was responsible for downloading pictures from her Casio camera (USB driver btw), or... wait for it... the Epson R320 (which is USB driven). Enable the WinFax autostart tool (which starts at Windows bootup), system would lag. Enable the the Casio driver, system would lag (even though the camera wasn't hooked up). Up until yesterday everything had been fine on her system, so it was a hell of a brain teaser. Enable either one, and the system would lag just like you described.

Here's the differing kicker: the printer wasn't hooked up. Go figure.

I tried everything, even loaded the updated Epson drivers off their site. Doing so helped, but it would still lag. In the end I had to remove the Casio driver (and install another program to give her the same functionality), and unload the WinFax autostart tool (starting it manually didn't cause the issues). I have a feeling that it wasn't the driver specifically, but rather one of the other tools that gets installed with the printer (with Epson there is about 8 different apps/tools that get loaded). I just didn't have the time to figure out what it was (nor did I have the printer to do a proper reinstall anyways).

Too wierd.

PangingJr · Dec 30, 2006, 01:18 AM

below are some checkpoints and some resolution to the problems of the "slow response after clicking on My Computer in Windows XP"

"Could be an issue with a Shell Extension. If the PC is a Stand-Alone, I would probably unbind "File and Printer Sharing Service" from the NIC. Also, untic the "Automatically Search for Network Folders & Printers from the Folder Options, View (TAB)."

"Disconnect all network shares that you can't browse (because they are offline)."

Microsoft KB819017 - Long delay before files appear in My Computer in Windows XP - http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;EN-US;819017
- Stop the Windows Image Acquisition service.
- or, unplug the printer from the USB port, and then restart Windows XP.
if this problem occurs when your system uses USB cable modem
- Unplug all other USB devices when you use your USB cable modem.

Registry edit - Line 157. Prevent Automatic Folder and Icon Refresh - http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm

Registry edit - prevents Windows from attempting to locate available file shares and printers by crawling the local network.
go to HKCU/SoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerAdva nced and set the value data of (dword) value named "NoNetCrawling" to 1.

Quote:

Q:
A couple of weeks ago I posted a problem that I was having with a slow
response when I selected "My Computer" The problem is still here and I have
done a little more research on it.

Using Windows Task Manager and 'Processes', I turned on viewing I/O Read
Bytes and I/O Write Bytes. Every time that I select 'My Computer',
Explorer.EXE reads about 600 MBs. On a second computer, Explorer only reads
about 20 KBs. This is a huge difference and is obviously the cause of the
slow response. The I/O Write Bytes seems normal, about the same on both
computers. I restarted the computer about 10-15 minutes ago and
Explorer.EXE has already read over 5GBs, which is far, far more than any
other process.

Everything else on the Task Manager looks normal. Page File usage stays
flat during this time and as you would expect, CPU Usage spikes.

Does anyone have any idea what would cause this and how I could fix it? I
don't particularly want to do a re-install of Windows, but it looks as if
that might be the only cure. I am using XP Pro on a fairly new Dell
computer. I have had two disk failures and a memory chip failure in about 2
months, so the system is not what I would consider the best. They replaced
the entire box after the second disk failure and I just had the memory chip
replaced last Friday.

A:
Try Filemon.Exe from SysInternals. By watching disk activities you
may be able to determine what it is that Explorer is doing. Also from
SysInternals get a copy of Process Explorer and check the "Handles"
column count for the Explorer process.

report back by user...

That did it!!!!. Very good tools. The NTFILMON program pointed out a
definite problem with Nero! I uninstalled all segments of the program and
now My Computer response is immediate. I am not familiar with all that I
was seeing, since my debugging background is primarily in mainframes, but it
was easy to see that Nero was causing some type of problem. I will
re-install and see what happens.

report back by user...

It seems as if NeroMix is the culprit. I am not sure exactly what the
program does, but I just thought it was one of the modules that was needed.
When I uninstalled it, the Explorer worked fine. All I have installed is
the basic Nero6008 module and it does everything that I need.

Process Monitor (combines the features of two legacy Sysinternals utilities, Filemon and Regmon) - http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sys...ssmonitor.mspx

Process Explorer for Windows - http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sys...sExplorer.mspx

***temeteus82*** · Dec 30, 2006, 04:43 AM

@hobo: It's because the SATA drives are hot swappable. I have 2 SATAII drives and both of them can be removed on fly...

PangingJr · Dec 30, 2006, 10:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by [hobo]eclipse

... my SATA drives show up as removable storage? Is this because SATA are hotswapable?

From ASUS FAQS at http://support.asus.com/faq/faq.aspx?SLanguage=en-us

Q:
Why is there a "safely remove hardware" icon at right-hand side of taskbar after I installed nForce Chipset Driver in Windows2000/XP? My hard disk is ST380013AS.

A:
Because Nvidia nForce4 SLI chipset can support SATA 2.0 which means that A8N-SLI Series also support Hot-Plug. If your SATA Hard disk do support Hot-Plug, you can Hot-Plug your hard disk like a usb storage device. But only port SATA1/2/3/4 will support this feature.

note-- this part of the message "But only port SATA1/2/3/4 will support this feature." may not exactly apply to your motherboard, check the motherboard manual for the SATA port number that can be used with the Hot-Plug feature,
some of BIOS settings 'may' also be required for this to be fully activated.

Tipstaff · Dec 30, 2006, 08:04 PM

Just wanted to clarify something: This isn't indicative of all SATA supported chipsets, and there are necessary settings and procedures to be made before hand for some boards to support hot swapping.

For instance, with the nForce chipset the SATAIDE driver needs to be installed for hot swap support to be active, however if don't install it, you don't get it. Word of warning though, changing drivers, or updating drivers already installed can sometimes have negative effects, specificially, I've seen hot swap support get seriously screwed up after someone had updated the nVidia SATAIDE driver. Wasn't pretty.

With Intel chipsets you need to have either AHCI or RAID (which includes AHCI support) selected within the bios to have access to hot swap support. Setting the SATA controller to PATA, Legacy, or IDE will not actiave AHCI. Also, you need to install the proper controller driver (ICH driver) during the installation of the operating system via the F6 floppy routine (that being the AHCI or RAID driver for the supported controller).

Oh, last thing: for obvious reasons, boot drive = not hot swappable.

CDsDontBurn · Dec 30, 2006, 10:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tipstaff

Just wanted to clarify something: This isn't indicative of all SATA supported chipsets, and there are necessary settings and procedures to be made before hand for some boards to support hot swapping.

For instance, with the nForce chipset the SATAIDE driver needs to be installed for hot swap support to be active, however if don't install it, you don't get it. Word of warning though, changing drivers, or updating drivers already installed can sometimes have negative effects, specificially, I've seen hot swap support get seriously screwed up after someone had updated the nVidia SATAIDE driver. Wasn't pretty.

With Intel chipsets you need to have either AHCI or RAID (which includes AHCI support) selected within the bios to have access to hot swap support. Setting the SATA controller to PATA, Legacy, or IDE will not actiave AHCI. Also, you need to install the proper controller driver (ICH driver) during the installation of the operating system via the F6 floppy routine (that being the AHCI or RAID driver for the supported controller).

Oh, last thing: for obvious reasons, boot drive = not hot swappable.

in the BIOS of an A64 board, what would be the setting of disable/enable the hotswap feature of the MoBo? I'd rather have that feature disabled just in case my sister does something she's not supposed to...

i'm the computer brain in my whole family, i want to have this work cut as much as possible at home

Tipstaff · Dec 31, 2006, 12:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CDsDontBurn

in the BIOS of an A64 board, what would be the setting of disable/enable the hotswap feature of the MoBo? I'd rather have that feature disabled just in case my sister does something she's not supposed to...

i'm the computer brain in my whole family, i want to have this work cut as much as possible at home

It's been a while since I fooled around with it, but I don't recall there being one. Most of the NF boards I've used all had RAID support (like the A8N-SLI), and every time I've used those boards I've eventually setup RAID on them. I do remember going through it a couple times where I didn't have it setup as RAID, and both times I had access to hot swapping only after I installed the SATAIDE driver. However, I only actually tried hot swapping drives when it was setup in RAID.

Unfortunately I don't readily sell or use NF boards, so my knowledge in them is pretty limited (I sell Intel boards for the most part). I'm sure someone will eventually correct me on this.

In any case, no matter what you won't be able to hot swap the boot drive. The same should go for hot swapping the drive that has an active OS on it (such as if you were dual booting OS, and you had the active OS installed on a 2nd hard drive), although I've yet to try actually doing that to be sure on it (my brains actually work enough to keep me from trying something so stupid

).