New computer - PC Specialist?

Hi all


my computer came this morning but it's a bit of bad timing because my dad (who was going to put the graphics card in for me) was heading off for a week or so and wasn't able to put it in the machine before he went. He did have a look at it before he left, but he told me that it's going to be difficult to do however. I ordered the machine with no graphics card or OS, and he said that when he booted up the machine, there was no display. I am at work so did not see what he was doing but he told me that as there is no OS, and there is no graphics capability on the motherboard, there was no display when he turned it on. He can't install the OS without a display, but is unsure if it's ok to connect the graphics card without an OS. Basically, I am wondering what order and how to do it? Should I connect the graphics card, then turn on the machine, install the OS and then install the graphics card? Would that even work? I'm a bit confused! I just can't see how I can do anything when there is no display whatsoever.

thanks again!
 
Put the graphics card in and make sure you've connected the power connector(s) to it.

Boot the machine and enter BIOS.

Make any adjustments within BIOS you think neccessary and set first boot device to CD/DVD.

Boot from your OS CD/DVD and away you go.

Once OS is installed, load latest video drivers, Nvidia's are currently at V91.47 for Win XP/2000.
 
Thank you for filling me in! I didn't realise I might need to make adjustments in BIOS. What kind of adjustments? And are they easy to do? The machine is:

CPU
INTEL® CORE® 2 DUO E6600 (2 X 2.40GHZ) 1066mhz FSB/4MB Cache

Memory
2048 MB CORSAIR DDR2-667 PC5300 - LIFETIME WARRANTY! (2x1GB)

Motherboard
ASUS® P5N32 SLI SE DELUXE: 2 PCI, DUAL LAN, SATA RAID

I will be installing Win XP Home edition, and a 7950GX2 graphics card. Once I have set it to boot from my OS CD, and got the graphics card installed after installing the OS, do I need to revert to whatever setting it will have been before setting it to boot from disc?
 
BIOS adjustments: If you're not sure what to do just take a look through everything and change anything you're positive about. Other than that, leave it.

Let us know what speed your chip is running at.

Somewhere in the BIOS will be a boot option, as mentioned earlier, change it to CD/DVD. When OS is installed, or when XP first reboots during install, change it back to make priority boot from your hard disk.

And I forgot to mention, once you've installed video drivers go into video properties and set screen resolution and Monitor refresh rate.
 
Just noticed it's a RAID board, you'll need to load RAID drivers on install.

To do that, make a floppy disk from the data on the motherboard CD, the manual will tell you how.

Put the floppy disk in the drive and during install, early on, Win XP will prompt you to press F6 to install third party drivers. Do that then follow instructions.

You will have to do this even if you're not using a RAID setup.
 
This seems to be getting gradually more complicated and more scary! Ok, just to throw a spanner in the works, I do not have a floppy disk drive in the machine. I thought I would have no need for it ever. How wrong could I be, considering it's only day one and I need one! Instead I chose the option of having an INTERNAL 23 IN 1 CARD READER. Thinking I made the wrong choice now! Can I put the drivers that I need onto CD? If so, can I take the windows CD out when I would normally put the floppy in with the drivers? Or would that disrupt the installing of XP?
 
Ok, install Windows then load RAID drivers after installation.

I just hope Windows sees your hard disk during the installation.
 
Ok, I shall give it a shot. Why would Windows not see my hard disk?

My computer was in the testing stage for a couple of days with PC Specialist. I can only assume that they plugged in a graphics card and put an OS on for a short while to test it. Would they have done any of this as a general rule of thumb?
 
Sometimes Windows needs those RAID drivers loaded during installation process to recognise SATA hard disk.

As I recall, you only have one hard disk in that setup, so just go ahead and try to install.

When it gets to the format part, choose 'Format in NTFS' not the 'quick' option. The format will take quite some time, possibly up to an hour if your hard drive is large.

I have no idea what your supplier's rule of thumb is, sorry. All suppliers are just human beings trying to make a living, some are better than others.

But don't worry about that, jut try the install and don't be nervous about it :)
 
Well I installed the graphics card, and when I booted the machine, it said that there was only about 137GB of unpartitioned space. I am now installing Win XP and SP2, so it recognises the full space, but someone mentioned that it was a problem of older BIOSes where they might not be able to read drives over 137GB. But seeing as this is a brand new machine, this really shouldn't apply to mine. They said that SP2 won't sort out the issue with your BIOS, but will let me use the full capacity of large drives. How do I fix the BIOS issue, does anyone know?
 
That board will recognise the drive size ok.

Take a look in the BIOS, it will be listed and you should be able to see it's size.

SP2 should sort out the problem within Windows.

And don't forget to install the RAID drivers, it isn't vital but you'll probably have a yellow question mark in the Device Manager where Windows can't find drivers for the RAID controller.

In the unlikely event the motherboard's current BIOS won't recognise the drive's full size, you'll have to update the BIOS.

And guess what? You may need a floppy drive to do that.....

Go to the motherboard manufacturer's site and read their instructions on how to upgrade BIOS.
 
Well thanks for all the advice. I followed everything that I needed to do, fortunately SP2 fixed the problem so I didn't have to get into the scary looking stuff. The computer has been ticking over nicely for the last couple of days until a little while ago. I was playing a game (nothing majorly intensive, just civ 4 which doesn't need major graphics or anything) when my computer rebooted by itself. Argh! I then got a "windows has recovered from a serious error" message. I had only had the machien turned on for 40 mins at most at this point, after it being off all day. The error signature is:

BCCode : 100000d1 BCP1 : BA7BCF1E BCP2 : 00000002 BCP3 : 00000000

BCP4 : B9E64D90 OSVer : 5_1_2600 SP : 2_0 Product : 768_1

and clicking on the data it shows:

H:\DOCUME~1\CHARLO~1\LOCALS~1\Temp\WER9f5c.dir00\Mini091206-01.dmp

H:\DOCUME~1\CHARLO~1\LOCALS~1\Temp\WER9f5c.dir00\sysdata.xml

I am seriously hoping that nothing is wrong with the computer already, I've only visited hotmail and these forums online since using it! And I don't think it would be a power supply issue after only being on 40 mins? I've had it on for up to 10 hrs in a go over the weekend anyway. I did ask PC Specialist when I rang if the PSU would be ok for my graphics card and they said it would never be a problem.

The only thing different on the machine today is that I activated windows about 20 mins before it turned off. I hadn't been able to do it online as it was unable to connect, so did it via the phone, with no problems however.

Do you think maybe it was a one off? Am hoping so!
 
Charlotte, that kinda thing happens sometimes, even on the finest tuned of machines.

The only things you can do to minimise the risk of it happening again is to update all drivers and make sure CIV 4 has any latest patches applied.

Update video drivers (I believe Nvidia V91.47 are latest for XP), motherboard chipset drivers and audio drivers. And all the Microsoft critical software updates.

DO NOT apply any of Microsoft's hardware updates cos they generally is a bit crap :)

I wouldn't worry about it unless it happens on a regular basis and btw, don't bother sending error reports to MS, it's a waste of time.

You may wish to take note of your CPU and case temperatures as well, do you have temperature monitoring software installed? Often such software will be on the motherboard CD. Ideally, the CPU temp should be below 50C.

Also, did you install RAID drivers or no? Just curious.
 
If you don't see any error messages, right click on My Computer, select Properties and then the Advanced tab.

Click on Settings under Startup and Recovery and disable 'Automatically restart'.

Next time your PC reboots, you should see a Blue Screen of Death.


Could you please post the Stop Code from the BSOD? ;)


user.gif
 
Hi hi,


to answer your question, no, I didn't install RAID. My computer just hung again when I was playing civ 4. I did as you suggested disabled automatically restart, the info on the blue screen was as follows:

DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

Technical info:

STOP: 0X000000d1
(0xbbdbdf32, 0X0000000z, 0x00000000, 0xb9f65d90)
ALCXWDM.SYS - Address B9F65D90 base at B9DCE000, Datestamp 4305a705

I just had a look on google and it seems to be a problem that people experience whilst gaming, possibly to do with a conflict between an NVidia graphics card and an ASUS motherboard. Is this fixable? I've just checked what drivers were installed (from the disc that came with the card) and they're a bit older than the latest ones so I'll update that now and hopefully that will fix it.
 
Always ... it is surprising how new 'drivers' can fix things ... innit Flops. ;)

However, the big clue here is ALCXWDM.SYS (Avance Logic) ... it's to do with your Sound Card ... so I would get the latest drivers for that also, check your manual to see what they used. :thumb:

Fact is, you should try and find all the latest drivers ... one trick is to actually use Windows Update Site ... but use the Custom Button. Now, having said that, don't download from WUS, go instead to the manufacturers own site and get them from there. So, nVidia drives go get 'em off the nVidia website.

If all hell breaks loose ... roll-back the driver in safe mode and give us a shout.


user.gif
 
Well I tried updating the drivers for everything I could think of. I installed a newer version of the drivers for my audio, but I have had the same crash with the same technical data a couple of times since. My audio is Realtek AC'97 and I have updated the drivers to 5.10.0.6030 because it was the same number of digits as the driver version I had before, but I can't actually find any drivers with this layout (version wise) on the realtek site - in fact the realtek site seems completely unfathomable to me. Is there a driver on there that is more recent that I could be using?
 
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