Win2K and G400Max – please help!

[Eldar]

Woo hoo!

Windows 2000 is up and running! What I did is follow the advice of Gurm and other folks. I thought I was running the most current version of BIOS, but apparently Tyan had released later one which, to my amusement, (*drumrol*) has ACPI fixes! After flashing my bios, I booted into Windows 2000 VGA mode and checked resources. Instead of every single device and its digital brother using IRQ 11, now everything was using unique IRQs. One interesting thing is that IRQs range is now not limited to 1-15 or so, my Matrox card uses IRQ 128 (?!).
After that I booted in regular video mode and it still didn't work. But as I remembered people saying that you need to reinstall the OS for ACPI changes to take effect, I dediced to do it. Installed a clean W2K copy from scratch and it works now.

Finally, it seems like it might be over. Neubi and JohnT, you may want to check your motherboard vendor for the latest bios and if they have one, flash it. If your problem is any similar to mine, that may be the solution for you too.


Thanks for the help everyone!

-Eldar

[glarec]

John T: you know.. i would love to, but then it would take forever to do that :P go to intel's homepage and do a search on acpi. you'll be surprise to what you can find there. there's also a test there you can download to check to see if your mobo's acpi is implemented correctly.

elder: grat i had to upgrade my mobo's bios to QQ in order for acpi to work correctly too.



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Glarec
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bp6-(2)433(oc488) celerons, g400max, ibm ultra scsi 9.1g, sb-live value, hitachi ss-753 19", plextor 32x, etc, etc, etc...

[JohnT]

Neubi -

Okay, on the Tools menu there are three choices: Error Checking, Backup, and Defragmentation. Error checking has a button lableled Run Now. Pressing that, a dialog comes up with two check boxes
a.) Auto fix file system errors
b.) Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors

Selecting the first, as you suggested, cames up with further dialog that the utility could not get exclusive use of the drive, and would I like to run it at next startup, so I marked yes.

Upon reboot it did indeed run checkdisk and ...... immediately rebooted. On the second boot, it did not run checkdisk (or give me an opportunity to) and ended in the same multicolored display as before.

I had used the Run Now - Scan for and attempt to fix bad sectors previously, so I was not surprised at the hang.

I went back and booted in VGA mode, checked the Auto fix file system errors box again, and rebooted. When the checkdisk option appeared during the boot sequence, I waited until it had counted down to 3 seconds and pressed a key to bypass checkdisk. There was a black screen for a second or two and then.....
Well, I'll be damned - it booted into w2k with the selected resolution!!!

And I could select other resolutions and refresh rates. IRQ 11 is still shared with the G400Max, and my SCSI card, but it does work with the Via AGP driver.

Why should this proceedure work? My first WAG (wild assed guess, not to be confused with a SWAG - scientific WAG ) is the pause for the selection or rejection of checkdisk allows the OS to continue loading needed files that allow the video drivers to work when they are loaded.

The only problem here, is I have to remember to enable the check disk option each time I boot w2k, as it doesn't run a second time at bootup otherwise. Have you found a way to do this automatically? Perhaps a command line switch in boot.ini in addition to the /fastdetect that's already there?

Thanks for the tip that seems to be a workaround until Matrox gets their drivers fixed! I owe you one! If you ever come to Texas, let me know, and I'll buy you a dinner!

JohnT

[JohnT]

glarec -

I wasn't expecting a long disertation, just a summary of the features of ACPI that might be desireable. I believe a short summary would be of benefit to many other readers, besides myself. When I get a chance, I will check out the Intel reference you mentioned.

You made no comment about the shared IRQ's, so I'm still wondering if you believe the reports in DM and system information are incorrect.

With regard to disabling ACPI - my current BIOS for the KA7 (KA7_RK) does not offer this option. There is a beta BIOS, KA7_39, that does have the ACPI disable selection, but ABIT has broken the support for SCSI BIOS in it (won't boot from SCSI or allow the SCSI devices to been seen after booting in DOS and attempting to change to C:, or any other SCSI drive).

I went to DM and looked under computer - driver details, and three files are listed:
hal.dll
ntkrnlpa.exe
ntoskrnl.exe

Explorining the w2k CD, I see three other compressed Hal files:
halacpi.dl_
halaacpi.dl_
halapic.dl_

I was a little surprised that either halacpi.dl_ or halaacpi.dl_ wasn't listed instead of hal.dll. Does this mean the mb is really not ACPI compliant, or is this normal?

In a previous post, you mentioned changing the hal when ACPI was disabled, but what is the correct choice? Do either of the other two files need to be changed also, or do I already have the correct files loaded?

Thanks for your comments.

JohnT

[ph0rk]

John T,

I will take that shot at explaining why Win2k reports all devices as using IRQ 11 when the ACPI HAL is installed.

The thing with ACPI and IRQ's, is that all IRQ's are mapped to one IRQ (11), and then from there to higher "virtual" IRQ's. Thus the G400 on IRQ 128. This allows many more IRQ's than the customary 15 to be used.

Oh, and if you want to, re-install Win2k, and hit F5 instead of F6 when it asks for third party SCSI drivers, and you will be able to pick your machine type. Pick MPS Multiprocessor PC. Then, even if ACPI is on in your BIOS, Win2k will not use it, and it'll save you many headaches.

Myself, I have a BP6, and will never touch ACPI with a 20' pole. Too much trouble, and no benefits that I can see.

-ph0rk

[JohnT]

phOrk -

Thanks for the post. I'm not clear on which hal I have - as posted above, the computer entry in DM shows hal.dll installed instead of one of the two with acpi in the names. It would seem the one named halapic.dll would be the multiprocessor hal - can you confirm this?

I am thinking of reinstalling w2k, but I need to install third party SCSI drivers for my RAID card. So, my question is, how do I get them installed and still select the multiprocessor hal - should F5 or F6 be pressed first, or does it matter?

Do you know from the names which hal is which?

Thanks

JohnT

[Neubi]

JohnT

I think that it's only a timing problem, but I don't know what's the main problem. It could be the VIA-AGP driver which was not developed for the KX133 chipset. But it could also the Matrox driver or many other things in Win2k like "Windows kernel" or the BIOS of the motherboard.
The ACPI seems not guilty in this case. ;-)
I have tried Win2k with enabled and disabled ACPI.

If you want that chkdsk starts on every bootup, then you should skip chkdsk before the counter is down to zero. Then it starts again at the following bootup's. ;-)

I wrote this in my first message:
"Now the trick:
If you skip "chkdsk" at the bootup, it starts again at the next reboot."

You mustn't go in the VGA mode if you get the garbage screen. You must only give a "RESET" or "Powerdown", because then starts chkdsk automatically and you could boot without errors on screen.

Neubi


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[This message has been edited by Neubi (edited 01 May 2000).]

[This message has been edited by Neubi (edited 01 May 2000).]

[Neubi]

Hi JohnT

I have found a solution for chkdsk so it starts on every boot , with and without skip it at bootup !

1. Copy this following 8 lines into a new TXT file and rename it to "BootFix.reg". Place it on "C:\".

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\Session Manager]
"BootExecute"=hex(7):61,00,75,00,74,00,6f,00,63,00 ,68,00,65,00,63,00,6b,00,20,\
00,61,00,75,00,74,00,6f,00,63,00,68,00,6b,00,20,00 ,2f,00,70,00,20,00,5c,00,\
3f,00,3f,00,5c,00,43,00,3a,00,00,00,61,00,75,00,74 ,00,6f,00,63,00,68,00,65,\
00,63,00,6b,00,20,00,61,00,75,00,74,00,6f,00,63,00 ,68,00,6b,00,20,00,2a,00,\
00,00,00,00

2. Create a shortcut to "Regedit.EXE" in your autostart group. You can find "Regedit.EXE" in the "WINNT" folder.

3. Open the properties of this shortcut and edit the target (is named "Ziel" in the German version) line
from: C:\WINNT\regedit.exe
to: C:\WINNT\regedit.exe /S C:\BootFix.reg

If you have an other drive letter for your WIN2K you must change the line.
for example: D:\WINNT\regedit.exe /S C:\BootFix.reg

Then press "apply".

4. Run the shortcut once manually and then reboot your system. Chkdsk should now start automatically on drive C: at every boot.

If you want that chkdsk runs immediately without the countdown of 10sec. , you can set the time with:

chkntfs /T:X

the x stands for the time in seconds (Default: 10). Now I have set it to zero for me (works also with fat32).

chkntfs /T:0

You can execute this at the "Command Prompt", which you can find on the "Accessory" program group of Win2K.


Neubi

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[This message has been edited by Neubi (edited 01 May 2000).]

[JohnT]

Neubi -

I've been too busy today to get on the computer, if you can believe that. Maybe tomorrow I will have a chance to try your suggestions.

When I let the time count down to 3 sec before bypassing, chkdisk does not run the next time I boot. I will try bypassing sooner to see if that works, then try the reg changes you suggested.

Thanks for the post. Now, if you could just write a small utility that would allow the IRQ's in w2k to be adjusted manually.....


JohnT

[Gurm]

JohnT:

The IRQ's can be adjusted manually if you aren't using ACPI...

- Gurm

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Listen up, you primitive screwheads! See this? This is my BOOMSTICK! Etc. etc.

[JohnT]

So I've heard. But how do you do this if there is not an option in Bios to disable ACPI? The current BIOS for the KA7 (KA7_RK) does not have this option, and the beta BIOS KA7_39 has broken the support of SCSI

A few messages back, I was trying to find out which hal was correct for use with w2k with ACPI disabled, but noone stepped forward with an answer.

JohnT

[Gurm]

JohnT:

If you have a single processor, the correct non-ACPI hal is:

Standard PC

If you have multiple processors, the correct HAL is either:

MPS Multiprocessor PC
or
MPS Uniprocessor PC (only if you really WANT one CPU disabled)

- Gurm

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Listen up, you primitive screwheads! See this? This is my BOOMSTICK! Etc. etc.

[JohnT]

Neubi -

I tried your suggestion for the BootFix.reg, and it works as described - thanks!

JohnT

[JohnT]

Grum -

In the dialog during w2k installation, I have alway chosen standard pc (that's what comes up automatically on this mb - and the ASUS K7V).

If I check the computer listing in DM after installation, it shows hal.dll is installed (rather than halacpi.dll, or halaacpi). There is also a fourth hal on the cd - halapic.dll - which I would guess is the multiprocessor hal.

OTOH, the system listing shows an entry for acpi button and ms acpi. If I uninstall ms acpi, w2k automatically reinstalls it the next time I boot, and also reinstalls all hardware on my machine, including the mb items.

So.... is there anyway to disable acpi when there is not an option in BIOS to disable it? Or does pressing F5 during installation do something else during installation than just selecting standard pc in the normal sequence?

JohnT

[Neubi]

Hi JohnT!

I still live!

You should grab the AGP driver at this link and install it , like he has described it.
http://www.tomshardware.com/mainboar...508/index.html

Now it works on my system without other fixes!!!



Neubi

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