P4P800 BIOS Disaster!!!! Suggestions PLS!!!

"The Black Wibble" wrote in message
...


What I find strange is that you had the same delays in opening files even
after going back to the original
120GB EIDE drive and BIOS. Assuming at that time you detached the USB
drive and the 160GB SATA, was the
jumper setting on the 120GB EIDE drive and its position on along the IDE
cable the same as before? I can't
think what else the cause might be.

Tony.

Hi Tony,

I left everything the same as I hadn't even taken the original drive out of
the box permanently, just disconnected the primary port on the ide cable
plus power cable from it. As for the USB drive, I've tried it both
connected and disconnected (originally when the problem first came up and I
reflashed the bioses in) and it makes no difference.

Thanks,

ken


--
3GHz P4 (HT enabled)
Asus P4C800-E Deluxe
PDC20378 IDE/SATA controller
ADI AD1985 audio
MSI FX5900U-VTD256 (BIOS 4.35.20.22.0)
2x 512MB Kingston PC3500
2x 36.7 SATA WD Raptors
52/32/52 LiteOn CD-Writer
16x Pioneer DVD-120S
Enermax 550W PSU
Windows XP Pro & Linux Fedora
PC-70 Lian Li case w/ side window
Hitachi 174SXW B 17" LCD

To email me, replace org.nz with net.nz

Did you try to perform a repair install of XP? It might be that your system
is confused and just needs to re evaluate itself.

Have you run a disk or partition checker (Norton or Partition Magic)? If
you covered this earlier in the thread I apologize for the repeat.


"Ken Fox" wrote in message
...
"The Black Wibble" wrote in message
...


What I find strange is that you had the same delays in opening files
even
after going back to the original
120GB EIDE drive and BIOS. Assuming at that time you detached the USB
drive and the 160GB SATA, was the
jumper setting on the 120GB EIDE drive and its position on along the IDE
cable the same as before? I can't
think what else the cause might be.

Tony.

Hi Tony,

I left everything the same as I hadn't even taken the original drive out
of
the box permanently, just disconnected the primary port on the ide cable
plus power cable from it. As for the USB drive, I've tried it both
connected and disconnected (originally when the problem first came up and
I
reflashed the bioses in) and it makes no difference.

Thanks,

ken


--
3GHz P4 (HT enabled)
Asus P4C800-E Deluxe
PDC20378 IDE/SATA controller
ADI AD1985 audio
MSI FX5900U-VTD256 (BIOS 4.35.20.22.0)
2x 512MB Kingston PC3500
2x 36.7 SATA WD Raptors
52/32/52 LiteOn CD-Writer
16x Pioneer DVD-120S
Enermax 550W PSU
Windows XP Pro & Linux Fedora
PC-70 Lian Li case w/ side window
Hitachi 174SXW B 17" LCD

To email me, replace org.nz with net.nz

"no_one" wrote in message
.net...
Did you try to perform a repair install of XP? It might be that your
system
is confused and just needs to re evaluate itself.

Have you run a disk or partition checker (Norton or Partition Magic)? If
you covered this earlier in the thread I apologize for the repeat.

The plot is thickening;

I did call Asus tech support today and got hung up on by a tech I waited
half an hour to talk to. After hearing several minutes of my question he
just hung up. The reason I'm pretty sure he hung up rather than got
disconnected was that he did not call back even though he had my phone
number, and when I called back a bit later and got someone else, the guy
looked up my "case number" and found that the person taking the call didn't
document anything which is irregular, he said. Just another thing to
brighten my day and bad experiences with this mobo!

I did look through the logs under "Administrative tools" and there have been
a whole slew of errors listed; Some mention a controller error on "Hard
Disk8\DR17" Others reference problems with various networking services
(telephony, TCP\ICP, etc. etc. etc.).

If I look back in the logs I see that there were some of the same problems
just less of them going back more than a month.

I might try a repair install of W2K, but I think there is some sort of bad
hardware problem that might not be the bios after all; that could be just a
coincidence.

Any suggestions are very welcome!

Thanks,

ken




"Ken Fox" wrote in message
...
"The Black Wibble" wrote in message
...


What I find strange is that you had the same delays in opening files
even
after going back to the original
120GB EIDE drive and BIOS. Assuming at that time you detached the USB
drive and the 160GB SATA, was the
jumper setting on the 120GB EIDE drive and its position on along the
IDE
cable the same as before? I can't
think what else the cause might be.

Tony.

Hi Tony,

I left everything the same as I hadn't even taken the original drive out
of
the box permanently, just disconnected the primary port on the ide cable
plus power cable from it. As for the USB drive, I've tried it both
connected and disconnected (originally when the problem first came up
and
I
reflashed the bioses in) and it makes no difference.

Thanks,

ken


--
3GHz P4 (HT enabled)
Asus P4C800-E Deluxe
PDC20378 IDE/SATA controller
ADI AD1985 audio
MSI FX5900U-VTD256 (BIOS 4.35.20.22.0)
2x 512MB Kingston PC3500
2x 36.7 SATA WD Raptors
52/32/52 LiteOn CD-Writer
16x Pioneer DVD-120S
Enermax 550W PSU
Windows XP Pro & Linux Fedora
PC-70 Lian Li case w/ side window
Hitachi 174SXW B 17" LCD

To email me, replace org.nz with net.nz

if your OC try disabling it and Pat too

"Ken Fox" wrote in message
...
"no_one" wrote in message
.net...
Did you try to perform a repair install of XP? It might be that your
system
is confused and just needs to re evaluate itself.

Have you run a disk or partition checker (Norton or Partition Magic)?
If
you covered this earlier in the thread I apologize for the repeat.

The plot is thickening;

I did call Asus tech support today and got hung up on by a tech I waited
half an hour to talk to. After hearing several minutes of my question he
just hung up. The reason I'm pretty sure he hung up rather than got
disconnected was that he did not call back even though he had my phone
number, and when I called back a bit later and got someone else, the guy
looked up my "case number" and found that the person taking the call
didn't
document anything which is irregular, he said. Just another thing to
brighten my day and bad experiences with this mobo!

I did look through the logs under "Administrative tools" and there have
been
a whole slew of errors listed; Some mention a controller error on "Hard
Disk8\DR17" Others reference problems with various networking services
(telephony, TCP\ICP, etc. etc. etc.).

If I look back in the logs I see that there were some of the same problems
just less of them going back more than a month.

I might try a repair install of W2K, but I think there is some sort of bad
hardware problem that might not be the bios after all; that could be just
a
coincidence.

Any suggestions are very welcome!

Thanks,

ken




"Ken Fox" wrote in message
...
"The Black Wibble" wrote in message
...


What I find strange is that you had the same delays in opening files
even
after going back to the original
120GB EIDE drive and BIOS. Assuming at that time you detached the
USB
drive and the 160GB SATA, was the
jumper setting on the 120GB EIDE drive and its position on along the
IDE
cable the same as before? I can't
think what else the cause might be.

Tony.

Hi Tony,

I left everything the same as I hadn't even taken the original drive
out
of
the box permanently, just disconnected the primary port on the ide
cable
plus power cable from it. As for the USB drive, I've tried it both
connected and disconnected (originally when the problem first came up
and
I
reflashed the bioses in) and it makes no difference.

Thanks,

ken


--
3GHz P4 (HT enabled)
Asus P4C800-E Deluxe
PDC20378 IDE/SATA controller
ADI AD1985 audio
MSI FX5900U-VTD256 (BIOS 4.35.20.22.0)
2x 512MB Kingston PC3500
2x 36.7 SATA WD Raptors
52/32/52 LiteOn CD-Writer
16x Pioneer DVD-120S
Enermax 550W PSU
Windows XP Pro & Linux Fedora
PC-70 Lian Li case w/ side window
Hitachi 174SXW B 17" LCD

To email me, replace org.nz with net.nz

"Ken Fox" wrote in message news:btl15j$8jqkt$1@ID-
[...]
If I look back in the logs I see that there were some of the same problems
just less of them going back more than a month.

I might try a repair install of W2K, but I think there is some sort of bad
hardware problem that might not be the bios after all; that could be just a
coincidence.

Any suggestions are very welcome!

Run CHKDSK from a command console, and see what unholy things it uncovers if any.

What are the IRQ allocations like? Any conflicts? Any other devices sharing the same IRQ used by the HDD?

Tony.

--
3GHz P4 (HT enabled)
Asus P4C800-E Deluxe
PDC20378 IDE/SATA controller
ADI AD1985 audio
MSI FX5900U-VTD256 (BIOS 4.35.20.22.0)
2x 512MB Kingston PC3500
2x 36.7 SATA WD Raptors
52/32/52 LiteOn CD-Writer
16x Pioneer DVD-120S
Enermax 550W PSU
Windows XP Pro & Linux Fedora
PC-70 Lian Li case w/ side window
Hitachi 174SXW B 17" LCD

To email me, replace org.nz with net.nz

Hi Tony (and Harry),

I was overclocking but I disabled that at the first signs of trouble
yesterday; a check of CPU-Z shows that performance mode is disabled also, so
no PAT.

Since my last post I took out the cmos battery and shorted the jumper per
instructions that came in the manual. Curiously, the 2nd person I talked to
at Asus support told me to put the battery back in after 10-15 seconds with
the jumper still shorting, then change the jumper setting. This conflicts
with the manual and I decided I'd rather do what the manual says, e.g.,
after shorting out the jumper for 10-15 seconds then put it back in the
usual position then put the cmos battery back in. Then, I put my ghost
image from 12/23 back on the SATA drive system partition, then rebooted.
Before I put the old image back on the system disk, I ran a Norton ghost
image integrity check which (for the 4th time) showed the file was intact.
Now everything seems back to normal, after resetting bios options.

Of course, only time will tell if the system holds up and runs normally.
For now, it seems ok.

Review of the Win2K system log does not show the panoply of errors I got
before over the last day, on the 3 reboots now since the cmos trick.

In retrospect I know I attempted to flash the bios one other time, about a
month ago, and I was not sure that the flash took due to a "checksum error"
message I got. This might explain why I had a spate of Windows 2000 errors
in the system log a month ago, but they did not become repetitive like they
did this time; the system seemed to self-correct after a reboot, which did
not happen this time.

I am HOPING that the cmos shorting trick has put things back in order.

Certainly, the huge variety of errors present in the log over the last day
suggests multisystem failure, from (at the very least) multiple networking
components and also disk controller(s). Whilst this is certainly possible I
think, without knowing, that a Bios problem could produce lotsa problems
that could produce error logs and performance like what I got. And it could
well be that the Bios is permanently damaged and needs to have the chip
replaced. The Asus guy I talked to offered me the possibility to buy a new
Bios chip for $25 delivered from Asus, which I might do if the problems
recur. Or maybe I'll just throw in the towel and forget about building my
own systems in the future. The problem is that these integrated mobos are
10X as complicated as their predecessors from 5 years ago and maybe it is
just time to let Dell or someone else take the risk instead of me! I yearn
for the days when you bought a basic board and then put cards in for the
functionality you wanted; less functionality, less risk, and if you don't
use the function why have it on the board?

Thanks for all suggestions and assistance and any more you can give will
certainly be appreciated.

rgds,

ken



"The Black Wibble" wrote in message
news
"Ken Fox" wrote in message
news:btl15j$8jqkt$1@ID-
[...]
If I look back in the logs I see that there were some of the same
problems
just less of them going back more than a month.

I might try a repair install of W2K, but I think there is some sort of
bad
hardware problem that might not be the bios after all; that could be
just a
coincidence.

Any suggestions are very welcome!

Run CHKDSK from a command console, and see what unholy things it uncovers
if any.

What are the IRQ allocations like? Any conflicts? Any other devices
sharing the same IRQ used by the HDD?

Tony.

--
3GHz P4 (HT enabled)
Asus P4C800-E Deluxe
PDC20378 IDE/SATA controller
ADI AD1985 audio
MSI FX5900U-VTD256 (BIOS 4.35.20.22.0)
2x 512MB Kingston PC3500
2x 36.7 SATA WD Raptors
52/32/52 LiteOn CD-Writer
16x Pioneer DVD-120S
Enermax 550W PSU
Windows XP Pro & Linux Fedora
PC-70 Lian Li case w/ side window
Hitachi 174SXW B 17" LCD

To email me, replace org.nz with net.nz

"Ken Fox" wrote in message
...
[...]
Certainly, the huge variety of errors present in the log over the last day
suggests multisystem failure, from (at the very least) multiple networking
components and also disk controller(s). Whilst this is certainly possible I
think, without knowing, that a Bios problem could produce lotsa problems
that could produce error logs and performance like what I got. And it could
well be that the Bios is permanently damaged and needs to have the chip
replaced. The Asus guy I talked to offered me the possibility to buy a new
Bios chip for $25 delivered from Asus, which I might do if the problems
recur. Or maybe I'll just throw in the towel and forget about building my
own systems in the future. The problem is that these integrated mobos are
10X as complicated as their predecessors from 5 years ago and maybe it is
just time to let Dell or someone else take the risk instead of me! I yearn
for the days when you bought a basic board and then put cards in for the
functionality you wanted; less functionality, less risk, and if you don't
use the function why have it on the board?

Five years ago? Wasn't that when Doom was ~the~ Windows alternative? I had no experience building a PC in
those days, old timer ;-) So I don't know what it was like. The first PC I've built is the one I'm using now.
Though, I do recall that last century people had to mess around with jumpers, I/O port and IRQ setting to get
their cards to play nicely together.

Thanks for all suggestions and assistance and any more you can give will
certainly be appreciated.

rgds,

ken

I'm happy everything is working as it should. That was a toughy, but try not to let it put you off building
PCs. If you're a real(tm) geek, it's in your blood anyway.

Tony.

--
3GHz P4 (HT enabled)
Asus P4C800-E Deluxe
PDC20378 IDE/SATA controller
ADI AD1985 audio
MSI FX5900U-VTD256 (BIOS 4.35.20.22.0)
2x 512MB Kingston PC3500
2x 36.7 SATA WD Raptors
52/32/52 LiteOn CD-Writer
16x Pioneer DVD-120S
Enermax 550W PSU
Windows XP Pro & Linux Fedora
PC-70 Lian Li case w/ side window
Hitachi 174SXW B 17" LCD

To email me, replace org.nz with net.nz

By way of an update, removing the battery and shorting out the CMOS jumpers
early last evening appears to have completely fixed the problem.

I've even got the system overclocked again, 220FSB on my 2.6MHz P4 and DDR
400 RAM (both OC'd).

The W2K event viewer is whistle clean.

I'm pretty sure now that the bios flash and whatever went on in the CMOS as
the result was the cause, and I'm pretty sure I've fixed it. Only time and
numerous reboots will prove this,however.

Thanks everyone who gave suggestions, I do appreciate it!

rgds,

ken


"The Black Wibble" wrote in message
...

"Ken Fox" wrote in message
...
[...]
Certainly, the huge variety of errors present in the log over the last
day
suggests multisystem failure, from (at the very least) multiple
networking
components and also disk controller(s). Whilst this is certainly
possible I
think, without knowing, that a Bios problem could produce lotsa problems
that could produce error logs and performance like what I got. And it
could
well be that the Bios is permanently damaged and needs to have the chip
replaced. The Asus guy I talked to offered me the possibility to buy a
new
Bios chip for $25 delivered from Asus, which I might do if the problems
recur. Or maybe I'll just throw in the towel and forget about building
my
own systems in the future. The problem is that these integrated mobos
are
10X as complicated as their predecessors from 5 years ago and maybe it
is
just time to let Dell or someone else take the risk instead of me! I
yearn
for the days when you bought a basic board and then put cards in for the
functionality you wanted; less functionality, less risk, and if you
don't
use the function why have it on the board?

Five years ago? Wasn't that when Doom was ~the~ Windows alternative? I
had no experience building a PC in
those days, old timer ;-) So I don't know what it was like. The first PC
I've built is the one I'm using now.
Though, I do recall that last century people had to mess around with
jumpers, I/O port and IRQ setting to get
their cards to play nicely together.

Thanks for all suggestions and assistance and any more you can give will
certainly be appreciated.

rgds,

ken

I'm happy everything is working as it should. That was a toughy, but try
not to let it put you off building
PCs. If you're a real(tm) geek, it's in your blood anyway.

Tony.

--
3GHz P4 (HT enabled)
Asus P4C800-E Deluxe
PDC20378 IDE/SATA controller
ADI AD1985 audio
MSI FX5900U-VTD256 (BIOS 4.35.20.22.0)
2x 512MB Kingston PC3500
2x 36.7 SATA WD Raptors
52/32/52 LiteOn CD-Writer
16x Pioneer DVD-120S
Enermax 550W PSU
Windows XP Pro & Linux Fedora
PC-70 Lian Li case w/ side window
Hitachi 174SXW B 17" LCD

To email me, replace org.nz with net.nz

In article , "Ken Fox"
wrote:

snip
Or maybe I'll just throw in the towel and forget about building my
own systems in the future.
snip

Don't be so hard on yourself :-) In the past, whenever people would
post about their plan to flash a BIOS, a responder in this group would
point out the benefits of doing "Load Setup Defaults" both before
and after the upgrade. Doing the one before the flash, is to make sure
you aren't overclocking. Now, with the variants on the "CrashFree"
BIOS, escaping from a problem caused by an overclock is probably a
little easier than it used to be. The "Load Setup Defaults"
after the flash, is to make sure the contents of the CMOS memory
well in the Southbridge, line up with the BIOS idea of the structure
of that data. The "Clear the CMOS" procedure is there for
those occasions where things are so out of whack, that you cannot
get to the BIOS screen to do the "Load Setup Defaults".

Looking at the various Asus motherboard manuals in my collection,
I would say the level of complexity with regard to flashing is
just about constant. In the old days, for example, you had to
remember to disable "byte merge" before flashing. On the A7V family,
you have to watch for certain combinations of "from" "to" BIOS
upgrades. There were still details - they were just different
details.

It is too bad that the flashing utility couldn't set up the contents
of the motherboard to suit the flashing operation. Like, clearing
all volatile info stores, setting a flag in the CMOS to reinit
the CMOS contents etc.

If anything sucks here, it is the lack of advancement in the
utilities provided to do flashing.

That, and the fact that in the "CrashFree" BIOS issued by Asus,
they like to update the "boot block" so often. If they cannot
issue the first BIOS with a good boot block, they should just
ship the damn motherboards with dual BIOS chips on them, like
some of the competition.

Paul

Maximus wrote:

Alternatively, you can use one hard disk and install a fresh W2K on it to
see if
all is fine. Remember to apply all 4 Service packs.

One service pack - SP4 - is sufficient! It includes the earlier
hotfixes and add-ons.

Roy