Strange issue when upgrading the motherboard/CPU/RAM on one of our 2003 servers. When I try to boot to the new hardware the system gets as far as the startup splash screen but the system just sits at the scrolling bar and never goes past it. What's really odd about it is that if I decrease the RAM size from 4GB (which is what the original motherboard had) to 2GB then the system boots and detects the new hardware. As soon as I bump it back up to 4GB it just sits there. What might the amount of RAM have to do with it?
Tek-Tips is the largest IT community on the Internet today!
Members share and learn making Tek-Tips Forums the best source of peer-reviewed technical information on the Internet!
-
Congratulations Chris Miller on being selected by the Tek-Tips community for having the most helpful posts in the forums last week. Way to Go!
hardware upgrade issue 1
- Thread starter dpowell1
- Start date
Boot it up with 2gig then add /PAE in the boot.ini at the end of the [operating system] boot string. Shut it down, put full 4gig in it and boot it up. See if that helps.
RoadKi11
"This apparent fear reaction is typical, rather than try to solve technical problems technically, policy solutions are often chosen." - Fred Cohen
RoadKi11
"This apparent fear reaction is typical, rather than try to solve technical problems technically, policy solutions are often chosen." - Fred Cohen
- Thread starter
- #3
/PAE
Causes Ntldr to load Ntkrnlpa.exe, which is the version of the x86 kernel that is able to take advantage of x86 PAEs. The PAE version of the kernel presents 64-bit physical addresses to device drivers, so this switch is helpful for testing device driver support for large memory systems.
RoadKi11
"This apparent fear reaction is typical, rather than try to solve technical problems technically, policy solutions are often chosen." - Fred Cohen
Causes Ntldr to load Ntkrnlpa.exe, which is the version of the x86 kernel that is able to take advantage of x86 PAEs. The PAE version of the kernel presents 64-bit physical addresses to device drivers, so this switch is helpful for testing device driver support for large memory systems.
RoadKi11
"This apparent fear reaction is typical, rather than try to solve technical problems technically, policy solutions are often chosen." - Fred Cohen
- Thread starter
- #5
The /PAE switch didn't seem to make any difference. After disabling devices one at a time in Device Manager I finally narrowed the problem down to an Intel System Management BIOS Driver. If I disabled this device the system booted just fine regardless of the amount of RAM in the system. Don't know why the RAM size would have anything to do with it, just one of those mysteries. Anyway, I'll be contacting Intel looking for updated drivers.
Thanks to all who posted on this. I really appreciate your input.
Thanks to all who posted on this. I really appreciate your input.
-
1
- #6
Be sure to post the details if you get drivers and the problem goes away. It's also polite to award stars to those who helped you.
You can do so by clicking the "Thank <user> for this valuable post!" links.
Pat Richard MVP
Plan for performance, and capacity takes care of itself. Plan for capacity, and suffer poor performance.
You can do so by clicking the "Thank <user> for this valuable post!" links.
Pat Richard MVP
Plan for performance, and capacity takes care of itself. Plan for capacity, and suffer poor performance.
- Status
Similar threads
- Locked
- Question
