Win xp startup problems

Swys

I am a quilified computer engineer, And i got tired of this, Co9uldnt figure out why.. if anyone can help please..

This is the computer i reloaded from win2000 to win xp, I first tried an upgrade and it froze on the windows loading screen so i thought it was something to do with upgrade, so i did a new installation and it went it but as soon as i install ati drivers win xp freeze on loading up screen, So the upgrade i figured was the problem.

Ive tried the omega drivers , ati drivers,dna drivers, all does the same thing.

Ps. Everything worked fine on the win 2000 machine. So it should be something weird in xp

Here is the system specs

-Amd 700mhz cpu
-Gigabyte 7ixe4 motherboard
-256mb ram
-Ati radeon 9250 256mb
-2 hard drives one 10gb, xp installed on that, and one 140gb partitioned into 2 seperate drives


So if anyone have any ideas on what to do, please help.

BWX

Maybe it needs a BIOS update?

Swys

Have already updated the bios. And installed the newest amd chipset drivers..

swimtech

I would suspect a problem with the Gart drivers for the mainboard - are you using chipset drivers from the manufacturer for the mainboard model or from the chipset manufacturer?

Swys

ive tried the normal drivers from xp and the chipset drivers from amd.. Will try the gigabyte driver tonight see if that works

H3X4D3C1M4L

Is it a card CPU (Slot A) or a Socket A CPU? It might just be XP itself, I had a problem with the MS UAGP35.sys driver at one point, that driver isn't in Windows 2000

Swys

Its a socket A motherboard. And this is the first time ive had this kind of problem with xp. weird how some computer works excellent, And some seems to have lots of issues. This is the first time ive had so much problems with an gigabyte board though, even though its old.

Swys

Have tried all the chipset drivers, none works, like i said it has to be something in xp that i can de activate to work. since i had no problem in win2000

H3X4D3C1M4L

Do you happen to have a copy of some kind of rescue boot disk? I Know ERC commander lets you disable drivers from boo/startup without being inside Windows

Swys

Yes i have a rescue disk, But i dont want to disable me drivers, i actually want them to work. I can get into safe mode.. But ass soon as it loads video driver, it locks up.. Have no idea whats going on.

Swys

And ive tried all the chipset drivers for the board on the net, And nothing works, So i dont recko its that problem aswell..

pr0digal jenius

at what poin does it lock?

do you even make it to the desktop?

if so, it may be a registry issue, or possibly try updating XP to all the latest hotfixes along with .NET

if you're not even getting to the desktop at all, but can get into safe mode, the try uninstalling with driver cleaner in safe mode, and then install a different version of the drivers. If you're on the 5.13, try the 5.12, for example

Shuflie

Have you tried the obvious one of disabling/enabling fastwrites in the BIOS (if you can't see this option press 'crtl'+'F1' since its a gigabyte board).

Uncle

Someone should write an article on IRQ's, you won't believe how many problems are solved by checking to see which IRQ are sharing what together. This happened afew years back,when xp first came out, where I couldn't get past the log on for windows, sure enough sound card was sharing the same IRQ as my video card checked it out in safe mode. Wouldn't you know it I buy this new rig and my games would crash, everything else worked fine,what shook my memory up was some distortion from my sound in the games. Sure enough Windows asigned video and sound together again on the same IRQ. I moved my sound card one lower PCI slot and windows did its majic and gave my video and sound card their own IRQ and low and behold all my problems dissappeared.
Just for your info some people will argue till death that its all right to share IRQ's because windows is suppose to do that and I agree because you only have so many original IRQ's to use so Windows makes up some more if you need them. All I'm saying is that some hardware does not like to share IRQ's with anthing so you need to isolate them on their own.
This is experience talking. I'm pretty sure that a lot of people in these Forums if they checked to see what IRQ's are sharing what hardware, they could correct alot of their problems.
Have to ask yourself why a reformat and fresh install corrects certain problems, ussually windows reasigns the IRQ's that were sharing last time. Similiar to the reasoning of why you didn't place your sound card in the PCI slot next to the AGP slot, because both slots shared. Well enough of my rambling, all I can say is give it a shot If your really stuck.

redsolar

IRQ eh . I wrote this a long time ago, not so long ago after XP came out, and many had issues with IRQ/IRQL issues. It's a little aged up, since there was no real need to update it, but it should work with old hardware very well.

The problem with Old hardware - ACPI is not properly working, so here is something that may help

DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL AND IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL.

This solution helped me, but I do not guarantee that it will help you.

First thing to do is to clock down your CPU to the factory default voltage and frequency.

Second thing is to make sure memory is not at fault. Use memtest86 (www.memtest86.com). You will probably have to leave memtest overnight to make sure every single bit is tested.

Next, DISABLE ACPI. Yeah, yeah it gives some nifty features like standby, but hell, do you want these errors gone? Then use Hibernate, which is very nice.
There are many ways to disable ACPI:
1. Simply go to device manager, open Computer, and change anything that is there (can be "ACPI compliant system", anything, containing ACPI) to "Standard PC by the method of "Update driver" and select advanced. Then on reboot go to bios and change ACPI to disable. The sequence is important, as failing to do so may render your pc unbootable (the data won't be lost, don't worry)
2. If your motherboard has ACPI Enable field accessible, disable it and reinstall windows. This is a hardcore way somewhat, but a lot of people prefer it, as it ensures anything works right.
3. If your motherboard does not support ACPI Enable/disable setting, then there still is a solution (are you already jumping from happiness?). Simply install Windows XP from the harddrive, by copying the full i386 folder to any place and running winnt.exe (smartdrv.exe highly recommended prior to this option). DOn't forget the important part :-) : edit txtsetup.sif file. Replace the string ACPIEnable=2 to ACPIEnable=0. And then run smartdrv.exe and then winnt.exe from i386. Also note, smartdrv.exe is not included with Windows XP. It is widely available on the internet however.
4. Personally i prefer to combine both steps 1 and 2, just to be absolutely sure it goes right.

Next step is to make sure that as few devices as possible are sharing IRQs. To achieve this, go to BIOS (this blue thing that you can reach by pressing DEL in most cases when memory count is being conducted), and set IRQs MANUALLY. If you are a proud owner of any Creative card, then it cannot share an IRQ with anything, so make sure it does not.

Also make sure you do assign an IRQ for AGP card (make sure it’s also not sharing it, just in case), and for USB, if you use it (if not – disable it completely, it will free up an IRQ). If you have a RAID controller, they also don’t like sharing too much, but can handle it if there is no other choice (with the reservations made above, read SOUNDCARD AND VIDEO).

Rest should be fine, as most of the NIC’s share IRQs well enough, they can share it with USB, and other devices not listed above. If you cannot assign IRQs manually in BIOS, the only choice you have left is to try to move cards in the slots around.

Also, one quick note, ISA cards generally can NOT share IRQs, so either avoid them or avoid then . That’s what helped me, hope this will help you too.

Just one more thing, to be completely sure, I would also recommend to reinstall Windows XP with a modified txtsetup.sif file (found in i386). In this file change the line ACPIEnable=2 to ACPIEnable=0. Or if you still want to install the OS from the original CD, press F7 during setup (when it asks you if you want to install any third party raid or SCSI driver) and later, select "Standard PC" from the list of computers.

Oh yeah, forgot another important thing. Use signed (read WHQL) drivers. Yeah, they are not that fast, but I guess when you choose from stability and speed, the choice is obvious. At least for me. (Well, ok ok, i don't use WHQL drivers for my RAID controller, but Highpoint did a decent job in the last two releases, so they are ok to use)

red_solar

This is the complete somputer config on which it worked. IRQ setup also included.

AMD Duron (TM) 800 @ 1 GHz (7.5x133) @ 1.85(actual 1.92)V.
300W Codegen (Generic?) PSU, Extra Generic Case Fan, open side panel
Thermaltake Dragon ORB 3 Fan (7000 RPM, A1135 model), OCZ QuikSilver II
Abit KT7A-RAID, BIOS v64, modded, includes HPT370 RAID bios 2.3, HPT driver 2.3 (www.biosmods.com, www.highpoint-tech.com)
768(3x256)MB Micron and Mushkin PC 133 RAM, CL3, PC133, Turbo Settings in BIOS
PowerColor PowerGen GeForce 2 MX 32 MB with Blue ORB Fan, not overclocked (and never was), Detonator 21.83 (WHQL)
Sound Blaster Live! Value, Creative official win2000/xp drivers (www.americas.creative.com).
WD Caviar WD1000BB 100GB UDMA5(ATA100) Hard Drive, pri master, RAID channel 1 (not in RAID mode), 2 FAT32 partitions
IBM DESKSTAR 60 GXP 60GB UDMA5(ATA100) Hard Drive, pri master, RAID channel 2 (not in RAID mode), 1 NTFS partition. Dead. RMA pending, damn it.
Asus 50x CD-ROM, UDMA33, pri master, VIA IDE1
Creative 12x DVD (40x CD), UDMA33, pri slave, VIA IDE1
Plextor 16/10/40A CD-RW, MWUDMA2, pri master, VIA IDE2
CNET 200 PRO 10/100 Ethernet

All COM/LPT ports disabled (use USB instead), but it's not quite relevant

3COM Cable Modem
Samsung SyncMaster 755 DF Monitor
Altec Lansing AS33 Speakers + Subwoofer (front), AIWA Sereo system (back), 4.1 mode.
MS Wheelmouse Optical
MS Internet Keyboard Pro
Windows XP Professional

United Devices Cancer research 24/7/365, CPU load 100%, 45*C, record uptime over 1 month
ACPI : Disabled
HPT370 RAID : Enabled
USB : Enabled, IRQ assigned
AGP : 4x, No FastWrites, IRQ assigned, voltage BA.
Memory : 4-way interleave, Turbo
PNP OS : No
Via 4 in 1, v4.37
DirectX v8.1

IRQ layout:

0: System timer //cannot be changed
1: PC/AT Enhanced PS/2 Keyboard (101/102-Key) //cannot be changed
5: Creative SB Live! Value (WDM) //can be changed
6: Standard floppy disk controller //cannot be changed
8: System CMOS/real time clock //cannot be changed
10: CNet PRO200 PCI Fast Ethernet Adapter //can be changed
10: VIA Rev 5 or later USB Universal Host Controller //can be changed
10: VIA Rev 5 or later USB Universal Host Controller //can be changed
11: HPT370A UDMA/ATA100 RAID Controller //can be changed
12: NVIDIA GeForce2 MX/MX 400 //can be changed
13: Numeric data processor //can be changed, but should not
14: Primary IDE Channel //can be changed, but should not
15: Secondary IDE Channel //can be changed, but should not

Instructions ver 1.1. (last edited 2/10/2002)

Uncle

Thanks redsolar. The first time it happened, I was lucky, the IRQ was low enough for me to dissable in the bios, then I rebooted and xp reasigned the Irq's, then I went back and enabled it, and everything was hunckydory.

Robert McClelland

maybe you should get new ram for it