mjwebb007

Actually MS-6714 is the Part Number and can be used on the MSI site to figure out which model it is. The model is 845GVM-L. And technically that is purely a model, not a model number since it is alphanumeric and not just numeric. Anyway, now I am just being a nerd. Back to your original problem, yes please make sure you have the right motherboard drivers installed... http://www.msi.com.tw/program/products/mainboard/mbd/pro_mbd_detail.php?UID=369 But before you install drivers (which are listed there as INF files) make sure you have the latest BIOS. The latest BIOS on the site addresses the 845GVM but there are two different versions one for each revision of the PCB, see if you can figure out which version you have. This is very important and should be listed directly on the motherboard itself as Version 2.0 or 4.0 or whatever. This alone may solve your problem as it seems to me that the update description addresses "Wrong information of floppy in device manager under WinXP when plug USB floppy." Most systems would see a flash drive as a USB Floppy drive. Even if you have the latest BIOS installed you may want to reflash it to make sure it all took. From what I understand you bought the board used so really the state of the BIOS is unclear at best. You shouldn't need to install USB specific drivers since you are using WinXP SP2 (it has them built in) but there could be some miniscule conflict that is not registering with that BIOS. Let us know what happens and good luck.

This is the driver page... http://www.diamondmm.com/driversbefore912003.php But as you can see there are no WinXP drivers listed for it... You could try the drivers for Win2000 since WinXP is based on Win2000 but it might not work (which is where you already are)... Good luck....

Two things... You can download the reference drivers... http://www.viaarena.com/default.aspx?PageID=420&OSID=1&CatID=1010&SubCatID=104 Or you can download Asus specific drivers... http://support.asus.com/download/download.aspx?SLanguage=en-us&model=P4VP-MX I would personally go with the Asus drivers because they are specifically tested with your motherboard....but if they don't work then try the VIA ones as they are more "universal"... Good luck...

dbegmore... You stated that in another, separate FOUR YEAR OLD post. Most high level hardware reconfiguration software is going to cost you. Someone on here may know something but I would look at www.majorgeeks.com...pretty good site and I think you will find all kinds of software on there...some you may not even have thought you wanted or needed....

Well any hardware can be finicky when it comes to other components (usually is an issue with RAM compatability with the motherboard) but CPU's are semiconductors too so I don't see why this couldn't be possible. Plus I think most Intel chipsets are less forgiving as they seem to come out with new chipsets with every new processor as opposed to AMD who has the fortune of having the mem controller on-board making for easier compatability/upgradability. I am NOT, I repeat, NOT trying to start up an Intel vs. AMD discussion. Nothing I said above is false.

Normally I wouldn't mind so much but there seems to be a rash of people posting without even looking at the forums. So please don't take this the wrong way but there are more than 20 different posts on here about your situation. Just search for Red Alert and I am sure you will find your answer.

Oh, and last mention of my tangent, rocket science is not so hard...it's just some chemistry and physics....brain surgery....NOW that is tough....

It's probably just because you are Canadian... (One of my favorite ports in my entire Navy time was Halifax). I hate how tone doesn't translate easily in computer text. So if it wasn't obvious that Canadian reference was a joke. One thing too that causes a lot of confusion is that this is an Anglo-centric forum so those of us who do not speak English well sometimes have a hard time expressing themselves i.e. Char27 and apparently prestonmgb2003 (though he does seems to grasp syntax and grammar, just not how to make coherent thoughts). Anyway, hopefully again no one is offended. As I stated before, tone translates very poorly without voice or facial expression, so keep that in mind when posting. And for anyone who needs the verification, more of my problems on this forum have been solved by Relic posts than any other. I am done with my tangent. Char27, I would try doing what Relic's last post said. That would ensure that it is not a virus problem. Like I said, and Relic confirmed, Boot Sector Viruses (and these are quite common) can stay in the MBR and without clearing the MBR, will stay resident. This would also give the same indications of what is happening to you.

Yeah I was just telling him what caps were. I had an Abit KA7-100 mobo that had seven or eight caps that were oozing. Never had a stability issue once. Well maybe the fact that my CPU socket burned up (and I mean literally) due to the wavering voltage from the caps could be considered a "stability" issue but as far as the OS operating...rock solid. Anyway, I hope everyone feels better. Earlier in the post, it seems that there were several mentions of formatting therefore not a virus...can't viruses stay resident in the Master Boot Record of the hard disk regardless of format? I may have missed something from earlier but I am pretty sure this is true (but obviously not the issue if hard drives have been swapped).

Like bulging...rounded...sticking up so it is not flat...or it could just be a different color than the rest (most likely brown or dark reddish).

All over your motherboard and components and they look like little soda cans attached with two wires (from overhead you can't see the two wires).

Someone needs to explain forum rules to you then bump you off the forum. POST IT ONCE.

I don't know much about Linux but try going to www.linuxcompatible.org. You may actually be able to find your issue there under hardware or something.

Zalman or Antec....

Have a lot of expensive paperweights do you Relic?

I know this may be a silly question and I am not treating you like you are stupid (as I have done this myself, not to say I can't be stupid sometimes....anyway, back to the post), but did you plug the speakers back into the right port? Sometimes I try to do it by feel without actually looking at the back but sometimes you need to do it that way.

I personally would skip the cable select settings and go straight master and slave...see if that works.

Here's what I am considering doing, let me know if it is possible... I have a gaming rig that I am setting up that will have dual boot WinXP Pro and WinXP x64 Pro. Within regular WinXP Pro I want to run Microsoft's Virtual PC 2004 (partially just to try it and to be able to mess around with it) and then run Win98 virtually. This is pretty much so I can play Win95/Win98 games without worrying about graphic and sound conflicts (as I understand, Virtual PC uses emulation for both of those). My question is am I going to need an IDE drive or since everything is emulated for compatability will it run on my SATA drives? Also please feel free to tell me I am stupid and to just use one of the compatability programs that allows me to run older games on WinXP... I know this sounds like a newbie question but I have never ventured into virtual setups.... I am also considering running Linux distros virtually as I don't think my wife is going to accept a fourth rig just for Linux..(she was hesitant to allow rigs 2 and 3, rig 4 is dang near an impossiblity) so that would probably be my primary reason and then the gaming would be a secondary benefit...

Well the fact that you have formatted recently and it still crashes would tend to lead us to believe it is a hardware issue. I personally think you should upgrade the computer. Typically, the crashes that you seem to be having are power supply or RAM related. Your power supply may be rated for enough power but that doesn't mean the power it is putting out is clean or within the limits needed by your components (there are tons of posts online about the new Antec Neo HE power supplies not working with ASUS SLI motherboards - those power supplies are great and powerful and those motherboards are some of the best on the market....they just don't work well together. Oh and Antec has revised the wiring in the power supplies so there are no longer instability issues).

So your recommendation would be to try VMware Server Beta 2?

Have you tried rebooting/reinitializing everything? If you have a router then follow these steps: Turn off your computer. Unplug router. Unplug modem. Wait two minutes. Plug modem back in. Wait two minutes. Plug router back in. Wait two minutes. Restart computer. If this doesn't work, we need more details.

I thought about that and VS is actually what sent me in the VPC direction in the first place. It seemed as though for my personal computing needs and the functions I need it for, that VPC would be better (as I am pretty much gaming with it) since gaming with WinXP is hard enough in x64, trying to run Win98 games would be next to impossible. I might look into VMWare as well, I just was leaning more to the MS side since MAximumPC (I think) pretty much said the same thing for what I need. I will let you know the results.

Could try this... http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softw...item=ob-29250-1 It tells you what to do.... Or you could do this too although you would need to get Win98 up and running....mun this then upgrade to WinXP... http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softw...twareitem=35160

If you have changed out memory, DVD and hard drives, it would have to be the onboard video, the mainboard or the CPU. And again it could be you have bad media though I doubt that since it seems to be the same across multiple OSes (unless all your copies are burned copies which means two things - one you need to try legal copies i.e. buy one and two, maybe the DVD drives you have tried don't like the media you are using). Will Compaq not help you out any? I know waiting on the phone/emailing back and forth is a pain, but if you give up, what are you going to do - throw away your system? And how exactly are you coming up with 496MB of RAM? Is the onboard video memory fixed at 16MB and you have 512MB total? Do you know if there is a way (in the BIOS) to change the amount of shared memory? Tried this yet? http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/famiD...cname=c00034787 Also..blowing out the DVD drive is not enough...you need to actually get a Lens Cleaner disc....

Good article linked from ntcompatible website...shows you what you can expect (pretty much the same process for any X2/dual core Opteron)... http://www.3dgameman.com/forums/showthread.php?t=41998