New Build MOBO Problems

A

alphaandomega

New Member
Here's the backstory; I fried my crappy pci graphics card in my computer a couple of weeks ago. Instead of buying another crappy graphics card I decided to just upgrade the whole system. I now have a new mobo, processor, and graphics card. I hooked everything up and now I've yet to get the thing to boot windows.

Here's the details on the computer:

-380w psu
-Asus A8N-E motherboard
-Athlon FX-55 cpu
-Saphire ATI X1950XT 256mb video card
-IDE hard drive (I've tried 3 different known working ones)

Here's the problem:

With a hard drive installed that has a working copy of XP pro installed, it will only get to the "Windows didn't start normally last time" Screen. No matter what option I choose, (safe mode, start windows normally), It just blanks the screen for a split second and goes right back to the BIOS splash screen and repeats the process. I've never actually got the windows loading screen to come up.

I also tried installing xp pro onto a freshly formatted IDE hard drive and I couldn't get past the first re-start of the install. Once it gets done copying the install files and partitioning the HD. It would just re-start and start the process over.

I've tried:
-Using other hard drives (stated above)
-Pulling all the ram but 1 known-working stick
-Pulling all the PCI cards other than the PCI-E graphics card
-Re-setting the CMOS battery

I've changed the boot order and that didn't help at all. In the bios it is recognizing the ram/HD/CDROM and everything fine. I'm really stuck here on what to try. Anyone ever heard of this problem before? Have any ideas? I'm guessing its some MOBO setting that I'm missing or something. Since I can't install or boot windows no matter what I do, I think it has to be a hardware thing.

Sorry for the long post. Any help would be great as I'm starting to pull my hair out on this one.
 
When you change a motherboard, unless the new mobo has the same chipset, you need to reinstall windows. Take out all your hdd's out except for the IDE. On boot, go to your bios and set the proper boot order, which for now should be:

-CDROM
-IDE DRIVE

After that go ahead and install windows on the reformatted drive, upon restart take out the CD and set your boot priority to:

-IDE DRIVE- as the first one.

You should be set.
 
I did that exact thing, only difference is I didn't think to take out the CD. Although I wouldn't think that would matter if the boot priority is IDE Drive. Even with the boot order as HD it did the initial setup for a windows install again. The whole big circle I'm talking about.

Also, if I was to have to re-install windows either way, wouldn't it at least give me a screen telling me to do so? Since I assume your point is the whole activation thing. I'm just saying this in reference to the HD I tried that had a working copy of XP Pro already installed.
 
I had the same problem during my first build. The HDD had winXP already installed, and it went from one screen:

"windows was not properly shut down, please choose one of the options below:

-Last good configuration
-Windows XP Home Ed.
-something else"

Then it would try to get in, restart the aSus splash mobo screen comes back and it was never ending.

No, Windows would not tell you that you must reinstall, since you can never actually get into the OS. Everything you see is software wired into your motherboard, not the operating system. You need to reformat, then u need to REINSTALL windows. I thought you mentioned that you reformatted, if you did that, you had to have reinstalled windows on it if you actually tried
anything.
 
Yea I suppose I'll try to install windows again. Like I said I did try to install it on the re-formatted drive and it would just keep restarting to the bios splash screen. Even when I changed the boot order from cd to HD. I could never get it into the actual windows install GUI. You are right though, I've yet to see anything thats not software wired into the mobo.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top