Operating System / Software Installation Guide

[FB]

have personally used Mr Steveo's guide now about 15 times or so to install/reinstall windows

me too, at least never had a problem at all

[CrowdAds]

[YoBoGo]

Was also going to mention that in the past week I have seen links to this thread on other forums from people giving advice on how to install Windows.

Mr Steveo, if only you had a nickle for everytime someone used your guide .....you would be a rich man by now.

[Mr Steveo]

LOL @ YoBoGo

Darn I should have added a Pay Pal account to the Guide




BTW you guys might want to check back over the next five days. Ive got a few updates coming to the Guide based on recent Windows update stuff and how its intereacting with INF software.

Its nothing urgent y'all need to be concerned about. I just want to test a few more things before posting.

[sasman]

Painful installation of Win2000 on a P4P800.

I busted my butt to get Win2000 installed on a P4P800. I thought my CD might have been bad. It was telling me it couldn't find some files, but when I reinstalled it may have found them but couldn't find others, not consistent, ending in BSOD. I tried shutting down some options in the BIOS, but same results, mixed files not found, BOSD. I looked up error codes in Micro$oft, no help. I tried hacking in new SP4 files for the ones Win2000 didn't find on the install CD, BSOD.

I set the BIOS to total default, disabled most options, including hyperthreading, removed extra hardware. You guessed it BOSD. I tried the trick of combining the Win2000 CD with SP4, thinking it would recognize all the new hardware easier. I found this idea on the net and verified steps on Micro$oft, sounded like a good approach. Same random files missing ending in BSOD.

Even though I didn't find info on Asus' web site, I found another short thread HERE that mentioned RAID driver issues with the P4P800 and Win2000.

The solution was to install the latest ASUS DRIVERS (1010) and the cotton pickin' think installed without a hitch. Geesh!! If you use Win2000 and a P4P800, install the drivers FIRST. I learned the hard way, hope this helps.

If only I could find the drivers etc for a MYHD-120 HDTV card for Linux!! Back to work......

[rozel]

Just an update as promised and to thank the members of this forum for their brilliant advice - I really am truly grateful.

I have now managed to set up my RAID 0 setups, one for my OS and one for my Storage.

It is flying!!!!!!!!!!, as I hoped it would.

So what were my Lerning points?

1. If you install a new keyboard, however cheap, ensure you know how to operate the Function Keys - in my case via an F-lock key.

2. To install an OS on a RAID 0 setup on this MB, download your Accelerator Drivers before you start and put them on a floppy, in readiness for an F6 Install, during XP setup.

3. If you are copying or creating an XP Slipstream Install CD - ensure that you burn with the DOS character set rather than the ISO9660 one otherwise certain files will not copy leaving you to have to skip them during setup proper, with potentially damaging consequences

4. If you are installing 2 Arrays, as in my case, install only the one on which you plan to install the OS otherwise you might get your setup files spread out over more than one volume/partition. I managed to get all the system files on C: and the Boot files on D:

5. Get your copy of Mr Stevo's Guide and follow it to the letter, it is excellent.

6. Take your time - It's took me 5 days to reach the point where I had loaded my OS successfully, but with some errors along the way. I then took 2 days off to prepare again for anther "Go". I started yesterday lunchtime and it's now 24 hours later and I have a perfectly "clean" install, without a single error along the way. I have created 2 x 35Gb Partitions on my Intel Array and 3 Partitions on my Promise Array, 1 x 50Gb, 1 x 100Gb and and 1 x 150Gb. I have yet to install my Video drivers - I'm currently at point 29 of the Guide

Questions Please: -

1. How can I turn down the volume of the voice Post Messages
2. What is the CUPID menu item in Bios all about?
3. How can I check that my CPU is running with an FSB of 800Mhz
4. I want to adjust the Radiator Fan on my Aquarius II Water Cooling System, which has been connected to the CPU Fan Connector on the MB. I'm not sure what the various ratios mean. Currently it's running at 2200/2600 rpm but would like to increase this.


TAIA

[rozel]

Let's say Question 5

What do people think of the sound quality from the P4C800-E Deluxe onboard chip?

I hear of many people with Creative Audigy 2 soundcards installed, do I consider then that the sound is poor, in comparison say to the Nvidia chip on other Asus Mb's?

[Mr Steveo]

Originally posted by sasman


The solution was to install the latest ASUS DRIVERS (1010) and the cotton pickin' think installed without a hitch. Geesh!!

Are you talking software drivers or BIOS update?

[Mr Steveo]

Originally posted by rozel

Questions Please: -

1. How can I turn down the volume of the voice Post Messages
2. What is the CUPID menu item in Bios all about?
3. How can I check that my CPU is running with an FSB of 800Mhz
4. I want to adjust the Radiator Fan on my Aquarius II Water Cooling System, which has been connected to the CPU Fan Connector on the MB. I'm not sure what the various ratios mean. Currently it's running at 2200/2600 rpm but would like to increase this.

Let's say Question 5

What do people think of the sound quality from the P4C800-E Deluxe onboard chip?

I hear of many people with Creative Audigy 2 soundcards installed, do I consider then that the sound is poor, in comparison say to the Nvidia chip on other Asus Mb's?

Rozel

Im glad to hear the good news that you finally got everything solved and your system is set up the way you like and working great. Also, thanks for your contributions in your above post. Im sure your tips will help many!

As for your questions specific to your Asus motherboard, I dont have the answers for ya. Usually folks use this thread for questions and contributions pertaining to Operating System installation, drivers, and software questions. Since your questions are hardware related and focussed on a single mobo, I think you will probably get more answers and better answers by posting a new thread out in the main body of the Intel chispet forum.

Theres lots of folks out in the Intel chipset forum with the same motherboard as you who will be happy to help you with your questions.

Again, thanks for your tips above and congrats on your new system!

[sasman]

Oops, at 1:30am and FINALLY Win2000 to install my brain was in dangerously low octane mode. I updated the P4P800 BIOS to 1010 from Asus, not drivers.

Thanks Mr. Steveo.

[sasman]

I searched the forums and didn't see much about this, so here goes, to RAID or not to RAID....

I bought 2 Seagate drives from CompUSA to create a soft-RAID in Win2000, $59 is not a bad price. Note: there was no signs in the store, but the sale prices came up at the register and it printed the rebate, the same as on their web site. Sale expires tomorrow as I recall. This is the info from the CompUSA website.

Barracuda Plus 120GB, 7200RPM, Internal ATA/100 Hard Drive
Manufacturer: Seagate
Mfg Part #: ST3120026A
Product Number: 304906
Price: $59.99*
*after: $20.00 instant rebate(s)
$70.00 mail-in rebate(s)

I formatted approximately 5 gigs on the matching drives with the Seagate disk tool included with the drives. Do NOT format the whole drive or you'll do it all over again. I then installed Win2000 on the Primary Master (C in the 5gig space. Secondly, I installed Service Pack4. Next, I installed all the drivers for the P4P800. Finally, I did a Microsoft Update. It would not do the update until I monkied with the ActiveX settings. The 5 gig space on the Secondary Master (D makes a nice space to store software downloads/drivers. It's up to you to determine what sizes you want to make these particians. I like to defrag several times along the way too.

Now you're ready to follow the Micro$oft "cook book" guide 303184 here to set up the RAID. Save yousrself some time and check the boxes for both dynamic drives at the same time or it will reboot twice for each drive, yuck. Right click on the unfomatted drives and you're home, if you can read you can do it. I did assign a letter to the RAID drive. End result, drives C and D are each 5 gigs, F is a RAID drive over 200gigs. I used the default cluster size (4k?) as the doc recommended, there are 3 choices as I recall. It works for more than 2 drives, up to 32. If you have more than 32 drives hooked up to your system, you're outta luck pal.

http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;EN-US;303184

I did install Sandra 2004 and run a few quick benchmarks. At this time all BIOS settings are default. I can fix that later.

Drive C - standard drive no raid 37814 kb/s
Drive D - standard drive no raid 37886 kb/s
Drive F - RAID 45217 kb/s

How will it work in the long term? I don't know, should be ok. I have done the same thing on my CUSL2 PIII Linux server with RedHat9 and it has worked very well without problems for several months. If you want to do it with XP, it is likely not a lot different, search for the doc. You can look at the numbers and decide if its worth it for you.

Time to go install a MyHD-120 HDTV card. Are we having fun yet or what?

[rozel]

Hi Mr Stevo - it is me again!!!!

As you know I built my new system for NLE at least that was the basis behind my project.

This afternoon feeling confident I rigged up my Video Camera to one of the Motherboard's firewire ports (I have rigged up two using the header on the m/b as well) and opened Adobe Premiere Pro.

Immediately I got into problems with frames being dropped and then the capture timing out with the message "Timecode could not be found". Trying both ports with the same result I then plugged into the firewire port on the back of my Audigy 2 ZS Sound Card and voila !!! No problems whatsoever.

What gives here? I have read at least one thread which I have reopened

P4C800-E Firewire Problem

as no conclusion could be given to the originator of the thread pointing to exactly the same problems with this M/B

This is a very serious issue with this expensive M/B - why can't the Via OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller not capture video correctly?

I am beginning to wonder about this board now in view of the problems I have been having.

I am unable to find anything regarding this issue. I am due to install a Pinnacle DV500 board next week but from what I understand in the other thread, rigging my DV Camera to one of it's ports will not be a problem either - so it seems it's a problem associated with the Asus's ports only.

I Will be interested to hear about this please

Paul

[rozel]

From further reasearch, possibly a conflict between the onboard firewire ports and one or both RAID controllers.

[rozel]

Hi again,

Just had a very helpful response in a NG who's pointed out the basic fact that it could be an IRQ problem!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sure enough on checking things, the M/B manual (page 2-15) clearly states that slot 4 shares the same IRQ assignment as the Onboard 1394 controller!

This then is probably it, as after checking, I had installed my Audigy 2 ZS in slot 4 and probably takes precidence over the onboard controller.

I can't check things for certain as I'm changing things around somewhat later this week - I am removing my internal pci modem from slot 2 and replacing it with a USB model. I will though, be installing a pci Pinnacle DV500 card so my thoughts now turn to what slots do I use for my: -

1. Audigy 2 ZS
2. Pinnacle DV500

having reference to the table on page 2-15 of the manual.

Comments anyone?

Paul

[Mr Steveo]

Theres nothing with your OS Installation that will correct the firewire problems youre having. Thats probably why until now no one has replied in this thread

IRQ sharing is likely not the problem. Even if giving the VIA chip its own IRQ helps, its only a tempoprary bandaging. If I were to venture a guess, Id say the real problem either lies in the VIA chip, the Asus implemnetation of the chip, or a problem with the firewire drivers.

If giving it its own IRQ offers temporary relief, excellent. But keep in contact with Asus website and see if a future BIOS update or firewire driver from Asus or VIA solves the problem properly and for good.

--------------------------------------------

Also,
I saw you have another new problem in another thread on hibernation. Did you try my suggestions from the list I gave you in the General Intel forum last week? Most importantly did you do a clean OS install + install Q812415 before attempting first hibernation?

---------------------------------

Finally, Ive got a couple of really busy weeks going here and will not be in the forum much, if at all. Therefore I probably wont be able to follow up with you in any regular mannner here in this thread. Your best bet for troubleshooting these issues is to put all your problems in a single forum thread where members can see all the symptoms youre having in one place. In the end it may come down something simple like needing a better quality PSU or forgoing one of the RAID arrays.

PS- make sure you get that Q812415 installed each time you do a clean Windows installation

Good luck!

[rozel]

Thanks Mr Stevo - yes I did install the Q812415 fix before it did not wake up from Hibernation, but I had a recurrence of the BSOD's.

I have started a new thread as my crash was very much more serious than I had first feared. It can be found at: -

http://www.abxzone.com/forums/showth...171#post579171

I really hope someone can breath some life back into my Raptors soon !!

Cheers

Paul