Crazy Upgrade

Well I finally released my P4 1.6 from the choking SDRAM/845 combo.
I replaced my Intel D845WNL motherboard and 512MB of SDRAM with a new Intel D850MDL motherboard and 256MB of RDRAM.
It wasn't an easy upgrade.
Since I am using WinXP I was hoping I could get away without having to reinstall Windows.
I pulled out my old motherboard and cleaned up the heatsink and cpu. Applied new silver grease and installed it in the new board along with the RIMMS.
The system booted. I entered the bios to check the settings. All ok.
But when I rebooted and the BIOS handed control to the OS it was a no go. Black screen.
Back to the BIOS and set to boot from cd rom. Reboot with WinXP cd. I decided to try to fix my copy of Windows already Installed. All that does is recopy the Windows files and reverts everything back to native MS drivers.
And makes you reregister your copy of XP. How nice!
Well I had to call MS as my copy wouldn't reregister with the hardware change. Well it wasn't to bad. I was on hold for less than 30 seconds. I explained my problem and they gave me a new registration. After registering everything seemed ok. All my files were intact however I needed to reinstall the drivers for the motherboard.
Well then it really goes down hill. I removed the old drivers and installed the new ones but when I reboot Windows hangs at the welcome screen. Pressed control alt delete and Windows finished loading. Checked for problems and found my hard drive was in P10 mode. Ok try reinstalling ultra ata driver. Reboot and after the BIOS check I get a big blue screen telling me I'm f**ked.
By now I just about had enough and said f**k it reformat.
Reformatted hard drive and reinstalled Windows. And I had no problem registering I guess they have my hardware configuration in the great MS data base. So I get all my stuff installed and everything set up the way I like it.
Including all the MS updates for XP. After that I decided to check out the Intel website for a BIOS update. There was one so I decided to install it. The install goes smoothly. After the install I went into the BIOS and changed the settings that needed to be changed. Reboot and no Windows welcome screen. Reboot listen to hear a single short beep which indicates everything passed BIOS post and BIOS was giving control to the OS and nothing just a big black screen and no hard drive activity. WTF!!! Getting pissed now and not by beer.
Had to go throught it all again. Reinstall Windows for a third time. At least I didn't have a problem with reregistering.
So far so good. All seems to be ok accept I can't figure out why Windows has a 30 second delay before it loads after the BIOS hands control over.
These settings are found under the advance tab in system icon on the control panel. In the advance window there are options for start up and recovery and it is set for 30 seconds to display the OS select at start up. Seems like a strange option when I only have one OS on my system. It must have something to do with the number of users. But that is still odd because I am the only user.
So why would Windows delay start up for 30 seconds for the user to select an OS when there is only one user and one OS?
But I know this much I'm not going to change it right now because I sure as hell don't want to reinstall everything again.
The third time was smooth because before I updated the BIOS and Windows wigged out I burned all the XP drivers for all my hardware onto a single CD. Just like the big OEM's do. ' '
Just a tid bit on performance between 845 and 850.
My MadOnion 3DMark 2001 increased by 14%. Don't ask for my score because it is still too embarssing to post. However it is better then some of the scores from other MadOnion users who Benchmark their Dell's with faster cpu's!!! " "


<font color=red><i>Happy Canuck</i>!</font color=red> ' '

I read the whole post. XP sucks for those who make changes to their computers. The main reason I don't use it is because it's SLOWwwwwwwwwwwwww.

What's the frequency, Kenneth?

I tried changing the 30 second default but it made no difference in the boot up time.
I'll try checking the BIOS for the hard drive delay. But you know it's an Intel BIOS and they don't have many user options.

<font color=red><i>Happy Canuck</i>!</font color=red> ' '

aw, fock me! i'm an old hand. i can't believe i've spewed that much bullshit already.

[insert philosophical statement here]

I looked for the hard drive timeout delay in the bios and found that disabled is the default setting.
It's odd that Windows start up time takes almost two minutes with the 850 board. My old 845 board Windows would be up in 75 seconds.
I have the rapid boot selected in the BIOS. It seems that the hardware BIOS boot takes about 15 seconds. When the BIOS switches control to the OS the Windows XP Home Edition splash screen appears for about a minute before the Windows XP blue Welcome screen is displayed then another 30 seconds for all the other programs to load.
I have very few programs loading at start up. Norton AntiVirus takes a few seconds to load.
So it appears something is preventing access to the hard drive for the first 30 seconds after the BIOS hands control over to the OS.
But I can't find what is delaying the hard drive after the BIOS hands control over to Windows.
What happens is the BIOS hands control over to Windows. The Windows XP Home Edition splash screen is displayed. The first 30 seconds the splash screen is displayed there is no hard drive activity.

With my old 845 board as soon as the BIOS handed control over to Windows the Windows XP Home Edition splash screen was displayed and hard drive activity began. Windows was up and running in 75 seconds.

With the 850 board Windows is up and running in 105 seconds.

Windows shutdown time between the 845 and 850 boards remains the same. It takes about 10 to 15 seconds to shutdown Windows XP on these boards.

<font color=red><i>Happy Canuck</i>!</font color=red> ' '

good for u. bootay calls are always wellcome.
bet i know why she was randy too:
you have been spending too much time on the computer and not enough with her!

The only loyalties i have is to Performance, Cost
Reliability and the Truth.

I checked the WinXP event log and found a error that repeats three times at ten second intervals at start up.
The error is IdeChnDr
Which I believe is a abrivation for IDE Channel Driver.
Microsoft data base had no info on this error.
Searched Intel for info on IdeChnDr and it lead me to the Intel Application Accelerator.
I deleted the Intel Application Accelerator and my computer booted up normally. No 30 second delay and no start up errors were logged.
I reinstalled the Intel Application Accelerator and the computer booted with the 30 second delay and had the same three errors logged again at start up.
So now the question is why doesn't the Intel Application Accelerator work on my new motherboard?

Thanks for your help!

<font color=red><i>Happy Canuck</i>!</font color=red> ' '

Well I screwed around with the motherboard drivers again.
I uninstalled the Intel Application Accelerator.
Then tried to install the Intel Ultra ATA driver and upon reboot I ended up with a corrupted ide driver and couldn't boot into Windows. I mean I couldn't get into Windows at all even in safe mode. Tried using the WinXP CD but I couldn't get to Windows with it.
I ended up reformating and reinstalling everything.
I installed the Ultra ATA driver and I ended up with the same error. Then I installed the Intel Application Accelerator over the Ultra ATA driver and the error was still there.
It appears I have a defective ICH2 controller hub.
After testing my drives they are working at their rated transfer speeds so I don't think the problem is that severe.
Intel did have e-mail product service a while back but I have not been able to find any e-mail service addresses on their web site.
I suspect a flash for the 82802AB firmware hub would fix my problem. But since they don't offer free product support via e-mail anymore it looks like I am $hit out of luck.

<font color=red><i>Happy Canuck</i>!</font color=red> ' '

That made me forget about my headache caused by lack of sleep.

<font color=red><i>Happy Canuck</i>!</font color=red> ' '

Faster boot, fasser execution, slower operation. Yes, I need those aditional 3FPS in games, even if I can't see them.

What's the frequency, Kenneth?

Fewer FPS in games. Another more honest review site for businesses actually showed decreased performance for MOST applications, including business and rendering test. Most poeple who have done actuall benchmark comparisons from win98SE to XP have shown similar results but put their own slat on them, such as "but programs open more quickly" Yes, do to them being cached to RAM, taking away RAM you might need to actually RUN the app! Or "but it boots quicker" That's nice, I rarely reboot, utterly meaningless. Those with the most praise were the ones who upgraded from Win2k, because XP supported more hardware and software. Big deal. The main reason it gets promoted by so many hardware types is that it often requires NEW hardware, that's money in their pockets!
Oh, it does have it all over 98SE for stability, but since my systems are built for stability to begin with, that's a non-issue for me.

What's the frequency, Kenneth?

I'm not saying that you specifically should get XP, I'm just saying it's the best OS out of Microsoft so far.

I haven't noticed any difference in speeds, better or worse. That goes for games, office apps, Photoshop, etc. So speed isn't a big deal.

Apps loading faster? Doesn't seem like it to me, maybe I have that "feature" turned off? XP does however boot much quicker.

XP has some annoying interface problems, I won't mince my words about that. I don't like how the new Start menu is laid out, but I suppose I'll get used to it eventually.

XP is very, very stable however. And of course it has support for newer hardware, all Windows OSes have. But that's not a big deal for me.

And there are lots of little things that make me very happy. Remember my post about XP finding a file INSIDE a .zip archive? Stuff like that just makes my day.

Is XP for everyone? Of course not. But I love it.

<font color=orange>Quarter</font color=orange> <font color=blue>Pounder</font color=blue> <font color=orange>Inside</font color=orange>

3.1 was probably the fastest OS they made, but 95 was much easier to use. 95B was even faster due mainly to FAT32 and 32-bit enhancements in the OS. But it's far too much work to get it to support all my newer hardware, so I use 98SE. ME was even slower and less stable than 98. Eventually I'll be forced to use a newer OS, but until then, I'll stick with 98SE.

What's the frequency, Kenneth?