Help w/AMD Duron blue screen machine

[Porky]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips (More info?)

I thought I'd found my cheap XP machine, used, no tax, butt... no
guarentee neither.
This is used computer #6 for me since 1992. I just use em and trade up
when i have to. I know the old stuff, and the real old stuff, am
having to learn the new. You seem like a sharp bunch of guys, so......

AMD Duron 1ghz w/ 60 gig HD, XP loads up and runs with a monitor I'd
kept in the barn. C:\ properties tells me only 32 MB of ram, and about
18 gig of hard drive space, but the hd is partitoned, a bit new to me.
DVD player in it, so I put in my Sony CD burner, as a slave on the
same cable. The CDrom has a jumper to Creative Labs sound card, so I
plug that into the new MB, oops, now i've got a blue screen, no XP.
Tried a boot off the disc, nix that. Tried F8, Safe Mode, nah. Black
screen tells me there's NVRAM 262144KB OK. Can there be a ram problem,
like buddy surely pulled some out for his new machine? One blue ram
slot is occupied, and there is one more blue slot, 2 black slots of
the same length and 1 longer black slot. What are my best ram options,
and is that likely to fix XP?

TIA,
John Kogel

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips (More info?)

To start with I suspect that there is sound hardware on the
motherboard and that the sound card you added conflicts with that. The
on-board sound hardware could probably be disabled with a jumper or in
the bios. However, you may not need the creative labs sound card at
all. Unless the CDROM is REALLY old, the connection between the CD
burner and the sound card is probably to allow the CDROM audio output
to play through the computer speakers. There is likely a connector on
the motherboard for this or you may be able to get your operating
system to play cd audio discs by reading the disk directly.

I suspect your board may be a K7S5 or something similar if it has
different slots for SDRAM and DDR memory. You should try to identify
the board from its markings and download a manual for it.

For testing memory, I would download a program called Memtest86.

Also, AIDA is a useful program for determining your hardware software
configuration. This too can be downloaded as freeware.

Robert

juan_morre@hotmail.com (Porky) wrote in message news:<e72e0ed3.0404222053.7b354a25@posting.google.com>...
> I thought I'd found my cheap XP machine, used, no tax, butt... no
> guarentee neither.
> This is used computer #6 for me since 1992. I just use em and trade up
> when i have to. I know the old stuff, and the real old stuff, am
> having to learn the new. You seem like a sharp bunch of guys, so......
>
> AMD Duron 1ghz w/ 60 gig HD, XP loads up and runs with a monitor I'd
> kept in the barn. C:\ properties tells me only 32 MB of ram, and about
> 18 gig of hard drive space, but the hd is partitoned, a bit new to me.
> DVD player in it, so I put in my Sony CD burner, as a slave on the
> same cable. The CDrom has a jumper to Creative Labs sound card, so I
> plug that into the new MB, oops, now i've got a blue screen, no XP.
> Tried a boot off the disc, nix that. Tried F8, Safe Mode, nah. Black
> screen tells me there's NVRAM 262144KB OK. Can there be a ram problem,
> like buddy surely pulled some out for his new machine? One blue ram
> slot is occupied, and there is one more blue slot, 2 black slots of
> the same length and 1 longer black slot. What are my best ram options,
> and is that likely to fix XP?
>
> TIA,
> John Kogel

 

[Porky]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips (More info?)

Thanks, Robert.
The blue screen message is Windows will not load to avoid possible
damage to comp, possibly due to soft or hardware change. Then says
bios may not be compatible, download upgrade etc. kinda hard to do if
the @##$ thing wont start, aint it?
Tells me to try F7 when prompted to load drivers, but havent gotten
the prompt at all. F8 gets me to the safe mode option, from there back
to blue screen, no Windows. Tried to start in dos, no way.

XP Pro was working, well, I thought. Then I tried to add that stupid
sound card.

Yes, the previous owner installed this 60 gig hd, and partitioned it.
But it was working ok. One question about partitions, there was only
32 meg of ram available in C:\, is that ok? The starup screen says 262
megs ok, which would be the one stick of ram that's in the first slot
on the left, right?

My son has my XP pro upgrade disc, will bring it home tonite, and
we'll try to boot from it, there was no response to XP Home upgrade
disc.

Those are all good tips, and I'll be saving them, BTW.

Porky

 

[Porky]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips (More info?)

It's done. I reloaded XP, and lost access to some unauthorized
software, that's justice in today's world. I got a cheap computer, tax
free. Will now need product keys.....Thanks, Robert.

Porky

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips (More info?)

juan_morre@hotmail.com (Porky) wrote in message news:<e72e0ed3.0404241542.27335317@posting.google.com>...
> Thanks, Robert.
> The blue screen message is Windows will not load to avoid possible
> damage to comp, possibly due to soft or hardware change. Then says
> bios may not be compatible, download upgrade etc. kinda hard to do if
> the @##$ thing wont start, aint it?
> Tells me to try F7 when prompted to load drivers, but havent gotten
> the prompt at all. F8 gets me to the safe mode option, from there back
> to blue screen, no Windows. Tried to start in dos, no way.
>
> XP Pro was working, well, I thought. Then I tried to add that stupid
> sound card.
>
> Yes, the previous owner installed this 60 gig hd, and partitioned it.
> But it was working ok. One question about partitions, there was only
> 32 meg of ram available in C:\, is that ok? The starup screen says 262
> megs ok, which would be the one stick of ram that's in the first slot
> on the left, right?
>
> My son has my XP pro upgrade disc, will bring it home tonite, and
> we'll try to boot from it, there was no response to XP Home upgrade
> disc.
>
> Those are all good tips, and I'll be saving them, BTW.
>
> Porky

If the C: partition really is only 32 meg, I would expect that the
operating system is installed on a larger partition (D: or higher)
and that the booting process only starts in the C: partition. Windows
2K (and presumably XP) won't even install on a partition of less than
2 GB. Alternatively, if there is only 32 MB of space left on C: and
the OS is installed there, then this could be a problem.

There should be a boot option for "Last Known Good Configuration" -
this could be worth a try. Also, with the install disk, there should
be a possibility for doing a "Repair Install". I'm not sure what you
mean by "no response to XP Home upgrade disk". Normally the computer
should be able to boot into the install program using the installation
disk (you may have to set the bios so that the computer boots from the
CDROM drive). I'm also not to sure about what you mean by booting to
DOS - this isn't part of XP, but did come with Windows 95 and 98. You
should be able to boot DOS from a DOS floppy.

Robert



The 262 MB message seems OK.