I swear I'm gonna dynamite this box...

:fizzzzzzzz:

foxy passes over the dynamite :D



















and RUNS for cover


:KABOOM:




problem solved :)

NEXT ..........

Gee Flox! I never knew ye cared! :D

/me is now downing the box to effect attempts at repair and will rejoin the crew in a minimum of 3 hours time depending on status.

Ok, newest info: (again sorry bout double posting, but it's the only way to bump up nowadays)

1. No evident hardware damage. No smell of magic smoke, no sweaty caps, nada. Everything looks fine.

2. Re-reinstalled windows with high level format, no issues encountered during reinstall.

3. got through runonce, then the machine rebooted due to driver issue (fitting, it wasn't installed yet...)

4. booted to safemode and installed nvidia drivers from cd. (halted the reboot issues)

5. rebooted to normal windows and installed the mobo drivers, ports, lan, etc from my handy mobo cd.

6. had reboot issues due to video drivers (fitting, something in the mobo drivers must be conflicting with the nvidia drivers.)

7. booted to normal windows again and reinstalled nvidia drivers.

8. rebooted to normal windows again, waited through the 'found new hardware' 'printer install failed' bs yet again. Went online with MSIE and snagged down the latest drivers for z22 from Lexmark (for winXP specific). Unzipped them to their own directory per their instructions, attempted install of printer - FAILED. Grr.

I've not even begun to screw with the soundblaster yet, thinking that if it's fuxored at just the printer, I need to fix it first yesh?

So here's where we stand:

Virgin Winblows install - Yes, I'm putting up with the popups to say it's effing virgin, although I'm pretty sure I'll halt messenger and remove windows messenger from the mix before it's over with.

XP is sitting happily at service pack 1 with zero updates as of yet. (SP1 being as far back as I can go.. my OEM XP has sp1 onboard.)

What next?

Ok, I got tired of waiting round so I did the following:

Messenger service is now disabled, as is fitting for all good machines. Winblows messenger has been duly uninstalled, and all networking and fax services have been added.

Then the |ceman said "There will be sound!" and he inserted the Creative CD. And there was sound, and it was good! Now if I could just get the damn printer working...


One rack of greenies to Nokia for suggesting the highlevel format reinstall - at least the sound's fixed. I'm still in need of help though, so there's still greenies up for grabs!

I assume that the memory is a single stick.. and as there install has been 100% then the likelyhood of RAM compatability problem is reduced to <1%..

I have a cautious nature with Creative SB live cards.. Did you try installing the Lexmark drivers with the SB live card not in the machine? this question also displays my dislike towards Lexmark, but HP is higher on my dislike list..
All the problems with the nVidia video card is a worry,

Quote:

---

I had a Gigabyte mobo that annoyed the crap out of me.. it had a Leadtek GF4-ti4200.. BSODS, locks, freezes..DATA LOSS.. blame vid card.. go to another nvidia .. fine for a month or more then problem resumed.. Could not install a ATI card come hell or high water. and even when working forget the SB live card.. New mobo.. ATI cards work well, the ti4200 is supurb (I was lazy I just swapped the mobo, still running the original WInXP Pro sp2 happy as larry..

---

The fact all was well before, and the only reason for the clean install was a user stuffup.. then I would sugest that the problem is a installation order problem.. the sound card was very recent..
so the order will be..

OS install..
Shipped Video card drivers
create system restore point before each of the following steps
Mobo Drivers
Current Video drivers
USB updates..???? check ASUS for updated mobo drivers... check USB for any recent changes
Printer
SP2
Soundcard
Shipped soundcard drivers or just get the latest from ceative labs

please note: you could have a hardware hate triangle there.. Soundcard, Mobo, Videocard.. and the Printer is getting caught in the middle..

Agreed Undies. I'm thinking the issue is some sort of foul-up between SoundBlaster and the (I hate 'em too but they're cheap where a po boy like me can afford 'em) Lexmark printer. I'll give 'er a shot and see if removing the card, then installing the printer, then reinstalling the card works. For now everybody's up and running nicely save for that printer, and it's a secondary issue (other than the annoying 'windows has detected' and 'windows can't install' popups on bootup.

I've upgraded XP to just short of SP2 - thinking I might hold off on that install until after I resolve printer - best not to mess with it since it's behaving nicely atm.

Oh, and yes, the memory's a single 1/2 gig stick. Planning on adding a second one soon-ish - this is Mrs |ce's primary box.