Help me... or the computer gets it!!!

[Chesto]

Okay... I was doing a little uninstall of Oblivion folders, manually like, in preparation for re-install and... well... I may just have got a bit bored, or tired, or still stupid and... I right clicked , deleted, a whole folder and... when I tried restart, as you do, ... my world had gone black except for some rather alarming and, I must say, downright rude, printing on the screen there.

But I didn't panic. Oh no. I've been at this hi-tech computer stuff for quite a while and I've done bad things to hard drives before. And besides... I had my trusty MESH recovery disk to see me to safe waters.

Well... to make a long story even longer... I called, quite a number of times, MESH India, though they don't advertise it as such, but where they have all those helpful techy types... when I say 'all', I mean just one guy in the back room of whatever the local equivalent of an Indian Takeaway is.... And he and I got to swapping techy type talk and we agreed, between ourselves, mano a mano, that it would be best for me to save whatever I could from my files and stuff and then reformat the hard drive.

When I stopped weeping... I contacted a genius acquaintance for whom this kind of stuff is meat and drink. And he agreed to do the said ...thing, for said meat and drink, all unspoken of course, and then reinstall all the wonder that was my hard drive using the MESH recovery disk. And he did. By the way... some time when you have a week or so to spare, just google MESH recovery disk. Days of fun for all the family!

Needless to say, my genius acquaintance and I are no longer on acquaintance terms. I harbour no ill will towards him at all. And I would happily visit him at the institution in which he is now residing, peacefully... except for the restraining order.

Meanwhile... I got back the offending PC and fired it up, relishing the thought of all the lovely reinstalling I was going to get to do. But very little seemed to work. On the PC. It seems that the MESH recovery disk ( ah what a sublime jest that is ! ) is a sort of barebones version of Windows extreme lite. Doesn't bother itself with unimportant things like... oh, you know... motherboard drivers and stuff.

 

So this is where the real story begins. This is where the technofreaks get to strut their stuff. And no more whimsy. Promise.

 

 

Motherboard: ASUS A8N-SLI; CPU - socket 939 for AMD Athlon 64FX/ Athlon 64; Chipset- NVIDIA nForce 4 SLI... and more, on demand.

 

On first look::

 

In Device Manager: Under Other Devices, bright yellow ?!'s beside Multimedia Audio Controller; Network Controller; Other PCI Bridge Device; PCI Memory Controller; SM Bus Controller; Unknown Device; Video Controller (VGA Compatible )

- right clicking on any of these gets no driver files, installed , loaded, code 28 etc.

 

-Audigy drivers installed alright, so have sound.

 

MESH India emailed me links to the Asus drivers, which I dl'd, after a couple of callbacks because of uncertainty which of the many was the right one: Chipset_WinXP64_v665.

 

-Ran installer, after unzip then... nothing. No change except that now I had a WLAN card showing under network adapters. And unknown device had disappeared from the above list.

-ran Hardware Update wizard on each of the missing hardware, allowing for autocomplete - nothing.

 

Downloaded NVIDIA 7600 drivers for graphics card but have not installed because of the above.

 

After reregistering Win XP and updating to SP3, which seemed a good idea at the time as I was in the neighbourhood and all... I have some queries.

 

Queries:

-do I actually have the full version of Win XP, now ? How to tell?

-how do I get the drivers, which I think I have dl'd and installed, to install

-do I have to use the ASUS VGA Driver, and PCI Adapter installation disks that came packaged with the pc ?

 

Is there any other recourse left to me other than joining the saddest club in the world : the Mesh Owners Club? Okay, dammit. I joined. I'm THAT desperate. Fellow sufferers there may be able to offer some help. But with the wealth of talent and downright skill inhabiting THIS forum...!

 

Any help appreciated. thankyou in advance and other sickeningly, crawly type behaviour.

[bben46]

Go ahead and use the generic drivers on the install CD. You may need them until you install the drivers for your graphics card.

 

As to if you have all of XP, Well, I think MS should be sued for NOT giving a CD with every system. If you know some one with a real XP CD you can use it to check yours - the difference will be the CD Key that is supposed to be on the case, but rarely is. There is a program that allows you to recover your CD Key for WinXP. PM me and I will fill you in on what you have to do and where to get it.(its freeware).

 

As for installing the drivers, go to the Control panel - System - Hardware - device manager where you see all those yellow triangles. click on one and select driver, then update driver. When it wants to csan, if you tell it no and then tell it where you put the new drivers it should load them automatically.

[Chesto]

... so many corporations to sue, so little time to sue them.

 

Have pm'd you, bben.

 

Many thanks, so far.

[bluekatt]

Queries:

-do I actually have the full version of Win XP, now ? How to tell?

 

you most likley have a full version of windows xp

most OEM systems that come with a windows xp reinstall cd onlyreinstall the os it self not the drivers

thats hardly microsofts fault

windows only provides generic drivers that wil enable some sort of functionality to the pc

 

oem systems do not need to be activated if installed on the system they were made for and disabeling the activation nag is not that hard either

 

-how do I get the drivers, which I think I have dl'd and installed, to install

 

double click them and follow their instructions on screen

 

-do I have to use the ASUS VGA Driver, and PCI Adapter installation disks that came packaged with the pc ?

 

yes !

if you ever get any installation cd's with your computer by all means use them thats what they are there for

especially the asus vga driver unless you like to see windows herky jerky around

[Chesto]

thanks bluekatt. this is a WIP so I expect that there will be more to come...

[Chesto]

HERE IS AN IMPORTANT UPDATE FOR ALL THOSE WHO HAVE PUT THEIR LIVES ON HOLD AWAITING FURTHER INTERESTING DEVELOPMENTS ON THIS THREAD !

 

Yes. I do seem to have Win XP. AND it is 32 bit. THis latter bit of numberage is quite important , it seems. For, when one goes to a site like ASUS one is offered all kinds of wonderful drivers, and in more than one category : Utilities and Drivers. As there seemed to be a lot of the number 64 in my documentation I naturally assumed that I should download and install drivers also having the number 64. Not so. As my documentation and My Comp Properties only ever spoke of my Win XP as Win XP Home, it never occured to me that there were 'options'. However, it took only a couple of emails to finally get the relevent info out of MESH that, yes, mine was 32 bit, not 64 bit. So... that's alright then.

 

Uninstalled all the previously installed 64 bit drivers, installed 32 bit drivers and , hey presto!: MOST of the attractive, though very bad, yellow !?'s have gone! I have only TWO left! That must be progress. They are these, under unknown device ( I'm sure Donald Rumsfeld [sp?] would have described them more aptly ):

-Mutimedia Audio Controller

-Network Controller

 

Following sage advice, I installed the nVidia drivers. Successfully, and with a minimum of frightening messages. AND I have attempted to install the ASUS VGA driver install disk, but it wont... install. In the 'read me' is a list of supported whatevers. My ASUS A8NSLI is not on that list. Could it be that MESH have sent me the WRONG install disk with the original delivery?

 

But, more importantly, does it matter now that I have dl'd and installed the drivers from ASUS, and the nVdia Graphics card ? For , after said installs, scrolling down pages on THIS site no longer 'herk and jerk', as previously.

 

I have one install disk left to install: ASUS PCI Adapter. Should I now install this, and risk undoing all the hard gained progress thus far? Or , will it cure My Computer of the dreaded yellow ?!'s...?

 

Any advice gratefully received, as usual.

[bben46]

Yes, install the PCI. Without it none of your PCI type boards will work. Unless your Video, Audio and all other boards are all PCI-E (PCI Express) they will not work without it. PCI is still used for many internal functions in a PC.

 

But then go to the ASUS site and download the latest set of drivers. (make sure you get the 32 bit drivers)

 

I have a similar system, ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe - probably the same board different revision number - with a Nvida GeForce 7600GT. I use a Turtle Beach audio board. Due to problems with an older Audigy product they are on my don't use list.

 

After you get it running, run DxDiag and save the results in a text file so you will have all of the info if you ever need it again. You could even print it out and put the printout in a safe place (I usually forget where I put it)

[Chesto]

Hi bben... Do I take it , from what you've just said, that I DO NOT need to concern myself with the ASUS VGA drivers install disk any more? If so... am relieved. Will now do the PCI install, which I know works, having done it before anything else, then uninstalled.

 

Many thanks.

 

For anyone who doesn't know it already: Every one should have a bben46 in their lives!

[Chesto]

Having dl'd all the drivers I thought were relevent, and some which I didn't - who knew that one needed Realtek audio drivers to make the Multimed Audio controller yellow ?!'s go away, specially as I have an Audigy sound card?- I am left with ONLY ONE yellow ?! : Network controller.

 

Under My Computer Info: Hardware

-Network card : WAN ( PPP/SLIP) Interface - driver: ndiswan.sys

-Network card : nVidia nForce Network Controller

packet scheduler miniport

Driver: nvenetfd.sys

Have tried Update driver on Network Controller - show all devices : unknown manufacturer:

- model 'box with green tick' SCSI/RAID Host controller

If I click on this I get a nasty message about windows cannot recommend, verify compatablility, etc.

 

Cannot find any other drivers to install for this device. Or am looking in wrong place. Or have yet to download them from whereever they are being secreted.

 

Oh yes... think my ASUS WLAN card has died. No little green light way down there at the back bottom where it lives, and will not be recognized by ASUS Utilities , which have been installed along with the PCI drivers. And ... have bought XP Pro Upgrade online. Hope that install of this when it arrives will solve ALL my problems. But for now....

 

Any more suggestions, please.

[Storm Raven]

Chesto,

 

Well, I must say I agree with you about Ben.

 

This must have been quite a learning experience for you. :wallbash:

 

Your description of the events, sounds only too familiar.

 

But it makes for much better reading, than most of my tech manuals. LOL. :biggrin:

 

If you're ASUS WLAN card is a PCI slot card, and not built-in to the motherboard, you'll probably have to download the latest driver for that as well.

 

No lights on the card eh, well, that's one of two things. It's not sitting in the slot right. Or it's not connected to the Web.

 

Hard to tell from here, my eyesight isn't what it used to be.

 

England after all, is a little stretch from Florida. LOL

 

 

Good luck old man. From another old man.

 

Storm Raven

 

8)