Help: motherboard can not connect to internet or DVD drive

[probuilder2006]

Hello,
Saturday I installed an ASUS M4A88T-M motherboard, AMD Athlon X4, Radeon 6670, and Thermaltake 430W, and hooked up my SATA DVD and Hardware drives. Everything went really well, except I couldn't connect to the internet. I got a 100% signal, but only limited connectivity. Yesterday, the system couldn't load the drivers for the SATA DVD. What do I do now?

 

[alvine]

have you tried resetting the cmos?
look in the bios if your optical drive is being seen by the mobo

 

[probuilder2006]

I have not tried resetting the CMOS. Yes, the BIOS is seen my by the mobo, but it has a yellow exclamation mark in Device Driver

 

[probuilder2006]

Try again: Optical drvie is seen by mobo, but it has the yellow !

 

[szaboaz]

Silly question I know, but I have to ask: have you installed all the drivers from the motherboard support page? First of all: the chipset driver?

 

[probuilder2006]

Not a silly question: do you mean from the disk the mobo came with or an update from the ASUS website?

 

[nikorr]

What is the OS?

 

[szaboaz]

The ones on the disk should do... if you installed those, there shouldn't be a problem because of drivers...

Especially since the website's chipset driver is from 2010.04.09, so I guess the disk can't be outdated.

 

[Dropdeadly]

Check drivers, usually drivers are a cause of this.

 

[probuilder2006]

Thanks! I'm running VISTA, which doesn't make things any easier. Hopefully resetting the CMOS will at least give mye back the CD/DVD and I'll re-install the chipset drivers from there.

 

[nikorr]

How To Clear CMOS @ http://pcsupport.about.com/od/fixtheproblem/tp/clearcmos.htm
[flash=480,270]http://www.youtube.com/v/rdHH9KrceR0?version=3&feature=player_detailpage[/flash]

 

[nikorr]

Run this @ http://support.microsoft.com/kb/982116

 

[probuilder2006]

Thank you for the link nikorr; the manual is good, but you can't beat a "live" demonstration

 

[nikorr]

Thank you for the link nikorr; the manual is good, but you can't beat a "live" demonstration

Yeah, lots of people think they cleared the CMOS, but if not done right, it still may not do the job... So this shows it : ))

 

[probuilder2006]

Well, I cleared the CMOS, entered BIOS, clicked "load setup defaults", saved and exited and ... it gets worse.
VISTA opens to the front page where you choose your user (we have four set up); I click on any of the users and I get "Windows Activation".
Still not recognizing optical drive, computer detects several wireless networks, connects to them, but no internet. Is this thing just broken?

 

[szaboaz]

Can you connect to the internet with an ethernet cable?

When you try to connect wirelessly, does it ask for password? Does it give you IP address ( write "ipconfig /all" into a command line window).

What kind of network are you trying to join? Your own router? College dorm wifi? Neighbour's wifi?

 

[vollman1]

Isn't the problem that he is using a HDD with the OS installed from a different mobo on this new mobo?

I thought that Win doesn't like that....

 

[szaboaz]

Isn't the problem that he is using a HDD with the OS installed from a different mobo on this new mobo?

I thought that Win doesn't like that....

+1

Well?

 

[probuilder2006]

To answer szaboaz's questions: I don't think I did install the chipset drivers; I was distracted by the lack of internet connection.
I have tried two different ethernet cables connected directly to the modem, and I get the same results: great signal, no internet.
Wirelessly, I have my own network at home (where I am) although there are free wifi spots around which are also being picked up. I am not asked for a password.
I'm not sure about the OS vs. HDD question? When I first installed the mobo, it was all working just fine.
Really don't know where to go from here ...

 

[szaboaz]

To answer szaboaz's questions: I don't think I did install the chipset drivers; I was distracted by the lack of internet connection.

Okay, do it now. Motherboard chipset drivers are the first to install after the Windows installation. If you feel that the situation is messy, start all over again with the Windows install.

I have tried two different ethernet cables connected directly to the modem, and I get the same results: great signal, no internet.
Wirelessly, I have my own network at home (where I am) although there are free wifi spots around which are also being picked up. I am not asked for a password.

I'm not sure what to think. The fact that it connects suggests that it has no driver problem. You should check whether your network interface gets IP address. (Just one possible scenario: if your network interface is on automatic IP address, and the router doesn't work as a DHCP server, then you won't get IP address - hence no connection.)

But chipset drivers first.

I'm not sure about the OS vs. HDD question? When I first installed the mobo, it was all working just fine.
Really don't know where to go from here ...

Well, English is not my 1st language, but the way you had put together your words, somewhat indicated that you might have put together your parts ("installed your mobo" what do you mean by installing a mobo?), and then you "hooked up" a hard drive which had already had windows installed.


If you're stuck, no problem, just try it again from scratch. No worries.

 

[probuilder2006]

Thank you for all your advice. You are correct: I installed a new motherboard and hooked it up to a hard drive that already had windows vista installed. Here's where I'm really stuck: without access to the iternet or recognition or the hard drive, how could I get the chipset drivers on? How I could do a reinstall?

 

[szaboaz]

About the chipset install
Ahh, I feel a little bit of shame. I somehow overlooked the part of your original message where you tell that the sata DVD don't work either, sorry.
Any chance of an usb pendrive working?
If all hell breaks loose and nothing else works, you can get out the hard drive, and join it to another computer, and copy the driver installers to the drive.


If it fails (you can't get it installed, or it gets installed, but still have problems), then reinstall is the best thing you can do.
For reinstalling the system, you'll need a Windows install DVD.

Just a couple words about your DVD drive
I believe the fact that your DVD drive doesn't work when the current sytem is loaded, doesn't mean, that you won't be able to use it for install. You can try it by booting on it. Any bootable CD or DVD will do. If you just want to test it, and you don't have any bootable CD around, you can download a pre-compiled bootable Memtest iso from http://www.memtest.org/ and burn it on a writable CD. Or an Ubuntu live CD would also do.

 

[probuilder2006]

No, please don't feel any shame. You've been of great help. I'll see if I can get the chipset drivers installed via a download from the ASUS website onto a usb pendrive. I've already backed up my files, so I guess if I have to, I can do a clean install of the os. I won't have a chance to find out if this works for another seven hours or so, though I wish I could do it sooner.

 

[szaboaz]

All righty. Maybe embarrassed would have been a better choice of word, it's freaky how I can overlook an important point like that. Hmm... maybe I'm not the genius I thought I was...
Okay, this is just tongue-in-cheek talking and a good practice for the language

And don't you forget those other drivers from the website! (Allright, mom!)

 

[probuilder2006]

The chipset drivers did the trick in terms of the optical drive. Glad to have it back. But I still don't have access to the internet. It's just weird. Everything appears to be working perfectly, but when I use the wireless I get a "Wireless Network Connection doesn't have a valid IP configuration." However, I have a laptop and that connects with no problem.

Anyway, thank you for your help over the last few days. I think I'm just going to have to contact ASUS and see if they know how to fix this.