New hardware: Help!!??!!

[GNEP]

Hmm... did actually drop the mouse the other day. Should have a spare somewhere. Will be trying with no case, and as little as possible connected to the mobo tonight.

Quick question - do I need to use the case's power switch, or can I short a jumper momentarily between the switch connection when trying things without the case?

Thanks

Gnep

[Technoid]

Use a screwdriver....
And what does the D-Led indicate?

[GNEP]

You mean on the D-Bracket? It varies. Sometimes gets nowhere, sometimes gets to the VGA bits...

Will be able to report back in more detail when I fiddle with the new board a bit more.

You sure about the screwdriver???

[SitFlyer]

Have you reset CMOS, since troubles began?
It's helped me before.

[GNEP]

Sitflyer: yes.

[GNEP]

Next Daily Update!

Go the old mobo to eventually post outside the case last night. But that's not really what I am after, so took that out and started playing with the new one again. Similar problems as before with G450 in it, so came to the conclusion that this has been sitting on the shelf for too long. Time for the Parhelia.

Got the machine to POST with no drives. Good. With a floppy attached - OK (but I don't really use floppies any more so no real use!).

Tried it with the HDD. Got all the way into windows. Excellent.

Tried it with the DVD-Rom. fine. booted off a CD to DOS and flashed the BIOS to version 1.6 (that is what I had downloaded before).

Set all the relevant settings.

Booted again. Went through a few cycles of what I have seen before - windows detects a new video card (VGA compatible) and asks to install the drivers. Either do so, or cancel and install manually (tried both several times). Reboot. Looks OK. Reboot again. Either get corrupted screen when in windows, or it thinks that the video card is different and asks me to install drivers. I don't - instead I uninstall the P drivers and reboot, before reinstalling the video drivers yet again.

This pattern repeated often, although once it did the old trick of not even POSTing, but making occasional clicking noises in the DVD Rom drive.

Eventually, after (I think) disabling sideband addressing amongst other changes in the BIOS (yes, all the while it was set to see a PnP OS), I had 2 or 3 reboots that kept the video card drivers in there OK. So I was happy, put it all in the case, and booted up with the video card still being recognised.

I think that the AGP slot might be a bit dodgy/loose. It doesn't look bad, but that is my best guess. When I was going through the reboot cycles, very occasionally it wouldn't pick the card up as a "VGA Compatible" but actually as a Parhelia in the Installing New Hardware popup. But not usually.

Hmmm... It seems OK now but only time will tell if it's stable.

Anyone else seen behaviour like this???

Thanks

Gnep

[Fat Tone]

Hi George

I've certainly seen simillar naughty behaviour that was solved by reinserting the AGP card with the back panel bent a little to keep the card more stable in the slot.

T.

[GNEP]

Thanks Tony - I have tried wobbling it around etc.

Seems that the case with the new mobo is actually keeping the the card slightly too high out of the AGP slot. So I have raised the mobo up a bit (interesting use of cardboard under the tray )

Seems a bit more stable now, although only more time and testing will tell.

If it keeps being crap, then out come the pliers

I have some more website work to do tonight, so this thing bl00dy well better be stable.

G