SOMEONE HELP PLEASE!!!

[greasEdego]

Help!!! I don't know what to do. My floppy drive, USB ports, Parallel Port, and my 2 Com ports don't work(Com2 and my parallel port show conflicts in device manager)!!! It's not the drivers I have that are the problem. Everything worked fine one day...then boom the next day all those problems were there! First I tried replacing the floppy drive. No go. Then I switched ribbons for the floppy and still nothing. I've gotten a new motherboard hoping that's what it was and still nothing. Actually I got the 2nd motherboard replaced because a computer technician told me it had a bad floppy controller even though I knew it didn't. And just today I replaced the power supply thinking maybe my 250 watt wasn't enough to handle my CD, DVD, and CD-RW and floppy and everything else so I got a 300. I really need this problem fixed becaues I need my floppy drive to work for school. I'm a computer science major and need to transport my computer programs to and from labs at my university and as of right now I have to keep emailing them to myself and it s really getting to be a bother. I have never seen nor heard of anything quite like I am experiencing. I like to believe I know alot about computers...well, I thought that until I encountered this. I have tried everything I can think of with no luck. The only thing left I can think of is that SOMETHING is causing a short somewhere on the board that is only shorting out those above mentioned devices. Any help, and I mean ANY would be GREATLY appreciated. I am spent for ideas so anything would be great. Thank you all for your time.

Sincerely,
Mario

P.S.
If it helps any, my specs are ECS K7VZM motherboard, AMD Duron 650, 1 128mb PC100 SDRam chip, Janton 32mb agp nvidia TNT2 card, and my usb, parallel, and com ports are all onboard as is my network card. Somebody please help me. I am in desperate need!!!

P.P.S.
I was thinking that maybe...MAYBE the board was brushing against the case somewhere causing a short and I'll have to try that tomorrow or sometime, but I am almost positive it's not so I have no clue...I wish it would work though... :-(

 

[Guest]

have you gone into the bios and told your machine that
com1 is 2f8 irq4, com2 is 3f8 irq3 and lpt1 is irq7?
after that try going into your control panel and overiding
windows settings?

who is more foolish...
the fool, or the fool that takes his advice?

 

[Crashman]

Sounds like an IRQ sharing error, caused by a volitile combination of Windows and you VIA chipset, I have seen this MANY times! Go into Windows and remove all your cards from System Properties>Device Manager. Then set your bios to configure PCI devices instead of the OS (the setting will read something like PNP OS-NO or PCI Configuration-by BIOS). Then restart your computer and hope for the best! If that doesn't work, try removing your network card and see if that helps, then, after everything is configured properly, reinstall the card. It should chnage the configuration just enough to accomodate the card.

Suicide is painless...........

 

[Guest]

did the 2nd reply work? I agree with it highly.

Ultimately clean install Windows!!!!

Best regards
cx5

 

[greasEdego]

Well...I've tried all of those suggestions and nothing works. I have no clue what to do. My uncle has looked at it(he works on computers) and 2 of my dad's friends have looked at it(both computer technicians) and still nothing. They have no clue whatsoever and neither do i. I thank all of you for help even though my computer still doesn't work. It's just nice to know there's people out there willing to help. If you have any more ideas feel free to post them. Thank you all.

 

[NickM]

Hi, Mario:

Sorry, but I didn't found whether your COM and LPT ports available
from DOS session (I'm not talking about USB at the moment, it's better to have it disabled at the beginning of conflict troubleshooting). I hope you can see them on Setup screen. Before doing something on Windows, just boot into DOS first
and check the access to the ports from DOS.
1) I've just checked for you some minutes ago in Win98's DOS Save Mode Command Prompt Only and Command Prompt (in my case it was HP Laserjet5M attached, but it works with any parallel printer):
type DIR> LPT1 from DOS Prompt C:\> (or A:\>, don't matter), like this:

C:\>DIR >LPT1
and hit the Enter key then.

2) My OEM AOpen wheel mouse didn't come with a DOS driver, but I downloaded it along
with the all-in-one file.
Better, if you have a chance to check how a conventional serial mouse works from DOS on your machine.
If there's no conflict, you probably have nothing to do on your hardware (except rear probability with some controllers that work fine in DOS and fail in 32-bit mode when baked or damaged by electrostatic discharge).

If no luck with DOS, before starting to work on the hardware you can try some diagnostic software
(probably you know, not always helpful. But was helpful to me):

I'm not ready to tell which works on AMD machines, VIA chipsets, probably I tried successfully QAPLpro.
May be they have something free on their <b>www.diagsoft.com</b> site.
#1-Tufftest by Windsor technologies (they had more advanced PC Technician, PC Diagnosis),
Checkit Pro from <b>www.touchstonesoftware.com</b>,
Micro-Scope by <b>www.micro2000.com</b>
(Sure, you know, but every time, before starting with any changes put notes about all previous
settings and statements. )


If you’re going to continue to work on your hardware, (sorry if I miss something you’ve already done)
try to put BIOS Default from Setup Table. I see you had a reason for power supply replacement,
then you probably have to reset the BIOS on the motherboard.
If it doesn’t help, then try to find your ports in DOS again, isolating the problem. (I see you’ve already done something on it).
Disassemble, uninstall all the cards one by one from the motherboard, leaving finally only video adapter (of cource, better to repete the procedure, using spare/replacement cards and devices also, oooh..., if there're any...).
Good advices has being already given before, such as to start from a network card.
Every time restart the system after shutting it down with the switch at the back of the power supply off. (At least for 30 sec, this note just in case.) Leave only one stick of memory (if there more than one, and exchange them as the last step).
Disconnect the harddrive(s), boot from the floppy drive. And vise versa.
Too much redundancy? Being always limited in time, I always started from such kind of simple redundancy or routine, and always got a clue or a solution fast.

If the problem remains, the motherboard probably is the problem (again???) Or, everything is possible, the power supply (again!?????).
We assume that the keyboard is OK, other connectors as well, no broken pins (I did some fixes with small parts somehow intruded inside the connectors).

One suspicious moment also exists for me in your story with your repair. It looks like you didn’t know what seemed to be the problem with your first motherboard. Probably, the technician didn’t explain clearly. Then the power supply replaced some days later. Why? Only because you’ve being thinking that there were not enough power? Why not along with the new motherboard then? Well, probably you don’t know that for your configuration
250 W from a good power supply would be good enough. The old power supply might be the problem when replacing the motherboard with a new one.

If you think that all above shows OK, then before reinstalling Windows from scratch, try msconfig first.
But for sure, you have to reinstall again in case no one of previous Windows installations were successful on recent hardware.

Sorry for such wordy post. Shortly it’s: If I were you, I would try all the tests, starting from simple ones again.
Don't give up. It should work.