I'm back on these excellent boards again, I've just mailed ASUS but probably won't get a reply for a few day. Here's what I wrote to them
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i have recently replaced my old motherboard which was defective with a brand new A7N8X-X. My system set up is as follows:
2 * Seagate Barracuda 80 Gb HDs, one master (a brand new one), one slave (an older one with WinXp Pro already installed)
Liteonit cd-rom master
atapi dvd rom slave
512Mb DDR RAM (not sure of the manufacturer)
ASUS 9200SE Graphics card
AMD XP1.7Ghz processor
The system powers up OK, the BIOS is stable, but when I come to install Windows XP Pro on my c drive (the new HD) after running the system analysis the PC powers down entirely, switching off the monitor. This usually happens at about the time that windows XP set up reaches the licence screen, although I have got further into the installation a couple of times before the shut down occured. (see below)
Exasperated with trying to install XP unsuccessfully I attempted to install an old version of Windows 98 (I know it's not supported...) with the idea of attempting to install XP over the top. After many hours of trying this I eventually managed to install Windows 98 from running the setup command in DOS, although it took many attempts before sudenly the installation completed. The error I received while trying to run WIndows 98 setup was usually that there weren't enough system resources to complete the installation which is untrue. However, I understand that when windows 98 was released the RAM, HDs etc were nothing like so powerful as now which can cause the problem in detection. Then when I formatted the drive and created an active partition from DOS WIndows 98 installer still thought that it had to format the drive and couldn't proceed. When I inspected the partition created on the drive it stood at 10781Mb which I think is very much too small and must be in error.
Eventually though I managed to install Windows 98 although it's PNP set up wasn't really able to handle the board and graphics card etc it was on there and would boot. Once in WIndows 98 I opened up the windows xp installation cd and instructed it to install windows xp pro. The pc rebooted and the usual power down occured for the first four attempts, then on the fifth attempt I manged to get through the licence and instructed windows xp to install on the existing partition, while overwriting with a full NTFS partition. Windows xp now went through the screen which says "copying files to the installation folder" which took some minutes, and then as soon as this process was completed the system powered down just as I was getting before, no error message, nothing, just power off monitor off.
I have tried setting the old HD which I know is not defective as master with the new drive disconnected - the situation is identical when attempting either 98 or XP Pro. I have tried disconnecting the slave HD and various combinations of floppy, dvd and cd rom disconnected, always the same result. I have tried 3 different RAM stick of differing sizes to no effect. I have removed the board from the case and ensured there are no short circuits - no change.
The WIndows XP Pro disk is fine, I have checked it on my old PC where it runs the installer no problem.
I have disabled the boot vius detection, set the HDD access modes to auto, LBA and CHS without any change in the problem. I have also tried both the new IDE cables that came with the board, and the old ones but that makes no difference. I have tried changing the front side bus jumper settings, tried changing the HDD jumper settings, all without any change.
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Now as far as I can see there's absolutely no reason why Windows XP shouldn't just install on a new HD. Any thoughts?
Thanks, Luspr
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i have recently replaced my old motherboard which was defective with a brand new A7N8X-X. My system set up is as follows:
2 * Seagate Barracuda 80 Gb HDs, one master (a brand new one), one slave (an older one with WinXp Pro already installed)
Liteonit cd-rom master
atapi dvd rom slave
512Mb DDR RAM (not sure of the manufacturer)
ASUS 9200SE Graphics card
AMD XP1.7Ghz processor
The system powers up OK, the BIOS is stable, but when I come to install Windows XP Pro on my c drive (the new HD) after running the system analysis the PC powers down entirely, switching off the monitor. This usually happens at about the time that windows XP set up reaches the licence screen, although I have got further into the installation a couple of times before the shut down occured. (see below)
Exasperated with trying to install XP unsuccessfully I attempted to install an old version of Windows 98 (I know it's not supported...) with the idea of attempting to install XP over the top. After many hours of trying this I eventually managed to install Windows 98 from running the setup command in DOS, although it took many attempts before sudenly the installation completed. The error I received while trying to run WIndows 98 setup was usually that there weren't enough system resources to complete the installation which is untrue. However, I understand that when windows 98 was released the RAM, HDs etc were nothing like so powerful as now which can cause the problem in detection. Then when I formatted the drive and created an active partition from DOS WIndows 98 installer still thought that it had to format the drive and couldn't proceed. When I inspected the partition created on the drive it stood at 10781Mb which I think is very much too small and must be in error.
Eventually though I managed to install Windows 98 although it's PNP set up wasn't really able to handle the board and graphics card etc it was on there and would boot. Once in WIndows 98 I opened up the windows xp installation cd and instructed it to install windows xp pro. The pc rebooted and the usual power down occured for the first four attempts, then on the fifth attempt I manged to get through the licence and instructed windows xp to install on the existing partition, while overwriting with a full NTFS partition. Windows xp now went through the screen which says "copying files to the installation folder" which took some minutes, and then as soon as this process was completed the system powered down just as I was getting before, no error message, nothing, just power off monitor off.
I have tried setting the old HD which I know is not defective as master with the new drive disconnected - the situation is identical when attempting either 98 or XP Pro. I have tried disconnecting the slave HD and various combinations of floppy, dvd and cd rom disconnected, always the same result. I have tried 3 different RAM stick of differing sizes to no effect. I have removed the board from the case and ensured there are no short circuits - no change.
The WIndows XP Pro disk is fine, I have checked it on my old PC where it runs the installer no problem.
I have disabled the boot vius detection, set the HDD access modes to auto, LBA and CHS without any change in the problem. I have also tried both the new IDE cables that came with the board, and the old ones but that makes no difference. I have tried changing the front side bus jumper settings, tried changing the HDD jumper settings, all without any change.
---------------------------------------------
Now as far as I can see there's absolutely no reason why Windows XP shouldn't just install on a new HD. Any thoughts?
Thanks, Luspr
