BIOS version

[Cool_Hand]

As some of you know I've been struggling to get my computer back into full working order. It's now doing okay. But during the last round of attempted fixes someone suggested that I make sure I have the most up to date BIOS.

I've looking on the motherboard manufacturers website and they list six BIOS upgrades but say not to install any that aren't required. I then had a look at my system and in windows there is the screen that gives great detail about the computer, well, it says I have BIOS v6.00 and some other digits. The BIOS upgrades are listed as a, b, c, d, etc. is there any way I can find out where my machine stands in this and should I just download them all?

As a mild aside is there an online place I can go to run a complete check of computer, motherboard and connectors, graphics card, memory etc. someone suggested a kit previously but it's c.£100.

Cheers.

[Naples Air Center, Inc.]

Cool_Hand,

If you are going to update your BIOS, you want to only flash the most up to date Revision. (Unless there is a reason listed on the BIOS Revision Page, that you should use one of the other Revisions.)

As a mild aside is there an online place I can go to run a complete check of computer, motherboard and connectors, graphics card, memory etc. someone suggested a kit previously but it's c.£100.

You are just throwing away money by using something like this. If you have a complete list of hardware and all your IRQs we can tell you everything you need in order to fix your computer hardware and Drivers.

First question, who made your computer?

Take Care,

Richard

[Phoenix09]

There is quite a good free on-line diagnosis site called PC Pitstop that can be found here. (http://www.pcpitstop.com/)

Taken from the site:
Our free automated tests will get your PC running faster, make it more stable, and identify security problems. The diagnostic tests don't change any settings on your system. The results will show you the details of your PC's operating status, and the advice will help both experts and novices to find and fix system problems.
It also allows you to compare your system against similar systems that have been tested on the site.

I have found it quite useful.

[Naples Air Center, Inc.]

Phoenix09,

Here is a thread where forum members posted about PCpitstop:

Test your system (http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=103017)

Take Care,

Richard

[Cool_Hand]

Thanks for the responses.

As soon as I saw the cost of the diagnostics kit I thought 'no way' I'll manage without it. But this query is a follow up of the last one (imminent hard drive failure).

I'd bought and installed the new WD800 hard drive, installed windows from scratch, and I kept on getting the occasional freeze. I downloaded and installed every windows ME upgrade from microsoft and all critical patches and all drivers...except Windows Media 9, and the 23.3Mb NET thingy. I have this niggly feeling that there is still something not complete in the computer as the hard drive didn't immediately solve the problem which tells me that it may still be in there. On my desk I have sitting 256Mb of memory, a 20Gb Hard drive (that appeared to be the cause of all the problems), a 4Gb hard drive and a TV card. I'd love to put the memory back in but I am suspicious that it may be the cause of the initial problem.

That was a brief overview, let me just get the story complete and a bit more chronological...this may take some time...(hopefully not though)

I bought a computer from Novatech, AMD Duron 800MHz, 64Mb RAM, 20Gb hard drive (on board graphics and sound), and it came with windows ME. I installed a 4 Gb second hard drive (this came from a previous computer) and about 6 months later I bought another 64Mb of RAM and a 16Mb graphics card. This machine worked fine. I decided to upgrade, basically wanted more expansion slots and a faster computer, looked around and decided that I didn't need another keyboard, mouse, hard drive etc. and decided on a motherboard combo from novatech. This time an L7VTA motherboard, AMD2100, with 256Mb RAM and an additional 128Mb ATI 9500/9700 graphics card (I'd like to identify this better, but the manual has both written on it and the drivers disc includes both and I can't find any specific identifier on the card.) So I installed the motherboard etc into a new case with 350W power supply attached my old hard drive and let windows find everything. I then installed all the drivers from the disc that came with the motherboard (If it asked for a driver I used the discs provided if not I let windows guess). This system worked like a dream I had no problems at all. I upgrade my monitor to a 15" TFT, no issues there, and bought a TV card (ATI).

Okay, now back in October, I recieved one of those really annoying e-mails that have recently become really popular (I had never heard of them before), claiming to be from microsoft telling me to upgrade a critical patch for my system, I checked it out looked at recipients etc. and it seemed to be okay, so stupidly I clicked on the attachment. This did something that crashed my system. I rebooted and it seemed to work fine but my e-mail wouldn't work and the internet seemed tempramental. I decided that this wasn't good and tried to locate something in my machine that I could uninstall, I couldn't find anything. I then went to microsoft upgrade website and thought that if I install all of the remaining patches it recommends it could sort out my problem. I was wrong the system crashed sometime during the install and download.

The computer died.

It took the best part of a week to be able to get the computer to open in safe mode (including trying to boot from the CD) so I could rescue as many files as possible (transferring to my second hard drive). I then formatted the hard drive, had immense 'fun' trying to get that to work and with the help of novatechs technical support got the system working again. It worked reasonably well with only the occasional freeze and crash but nothing special and very infrequent. I added another 256Mb RAM (PC-2700, same as the original in the board) and it seemed like a reasonable machine again, though not as good as it used to be. Then came the imminent hard drive failure issue which was the subject of another thread.

After I hard installed the new hard drive and when I installed windows again the system would crash in the searching for system components part after the installation is complete and would get stuck in a loop of restarting searching then crashing at the same point restarting etc. in the end I turned it off for the day and when I switched it on it finished the search. I then went to microsofts upgrade website and started to install the patches. The first critical patch was IE6. I installed it and upon reboot I got a huge string of:
'could not upgrade file %2 file from %1 file' about 80 times
and the machine crashed. Restarting it repeated the process but opened windows. IE would crash occasionally. I then removed the first stick of RAM and the frequency of crashes seemed to reduce. I uninstalled IE6 using control panel and on rebooting I had exactly the same thing 'could not upgarde file %2 from %1 file' in the end windows loaded and I had reasonable use of the internet no major crashes but Outlook wouldn't work. I downloaded Netscape and installed it, but couldn't get any mail program to work, I reinstalled windows (over the top hoping initially just to install IE5 again but it just reinstalled itself) I then spent a day at MS upgrade installing all the patches that didn't need an immediate reboot first then the critical patches. After every reboot the machine would lock after the 'upgrading system files' comment prior to opening windows. If I switch it off and wait a minute it'll power up wanting to go into safe mode but if I select normal it'll load up fine and work fine.

I've not really challenged it yet through fear of making it crash (so far it is close to soul destroying to see it crash), and I know there is a problem lurking somewhere in there. I just want ot be able to know what it is so I can sort it and get on using it as I intend.

Sorry if this is overly long winded but I'm sure the history can help. So that's answered the question of who built it, any more suggestions.

Just an additional thanks Richard, you seem to be a mine of helpful info. Phoenix, thanks for the link I might check it out.

Cheers,

J.

I've been looking at the motherboards website and it has a couple of BIOS updates that look like they might solve some issues, what happens if I flash more than one update? (One of the updates seems to sort out a warm reboot hang in ME, the other sorts out a RAID load fail (maybe linked to component search)) just guessing or rather grabbing at straws. There is one about high CPU temp as well (ref. imminent hard drive failure where CPU temp was mid 40C). Any thoughts?

[Naples Air Center, Inc.]

Cool_Hand,

All the info gives us a good understanding of what is going on in your computer.

I would like to try something. First I would like to pull out the ATI card and any other PCI Cards you have in the computer. I want to see if it still locks up on you.

WinME does not like legacy devices or legacy drivers. There were many problems between SoundBlaster and WinME, since SoundBlaster includes Legacy Drivers in their Driver Package.

If you could I would like to see a list of all your IRQs and every device on each IRQ.

Take Care,

Richard

[Cool_Hand]

Sorry for the delay in getting these to you, time issues etc. etc.

Anyway,

The IRQ's for the complete computer:

IRQ 0 System timer OK
IRQ 1 Standard 101/102-Key or Microsoft Natural Keyboard OK
IRQ 2 Programmable interrupt controller OK
IRQ 3 Communications Port (COM2) OK
IRQ 4 Communications Port (COM1) OK
IRQ 5 VIA OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller OK
IRQ 5 VIA Tech 3038 PCI to USB Universal Host Controller OK
IRQ 5 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering OK
IRQ 6 Standard Floppy Disk Controller OK
IRQ 7 ECP Printer Port (LPT1) OK
IRQ 8 System CMOS/real time clock OK
IRQ 9 SCI IRQ used by ACPI bus OK
IRQ 10 VIA Tech 3038 PCI to USB Universal Host Controller OK
IRQ 10 Vinyl AC'97 Codec Combo Driver (WDM) OK
IRQ 10 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering OK
IRQ 11 RADEON 9700/9500 SERIES OK
IRQ 11 Intel(R) 536EP WDM Modem Driver OK
IRQ 11 VIA Tech 3038 PCI to USB Universal Host Controller OK
IRQ 11 VIA PCI to USB Enhanced Host Controller OK
IRQ 11 VIA Rhine II Fast Ethernet Adapter OK
IRQ 11 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering OK
IRQ 11 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering OK
IRQ 12 PS/2 Compatible Mouse Port OK
IRQ 13 Numeric data processor OK
IRQ 14 VIA Bus Master PCI IDE Controller OK
IRQ 14 Primary IDE controller (dual fifo) OK
IRQ 15 VIA Bus Master PCI IDE Controller OK
IRQ 15 Secondary IDE controller (dual fifo) OK

Just as a slight aside (I seem to have a lot of these) I tried plugging the first RAM stick back in today and the machine froze. So, I'm quite confident that that was one of the main problems. It still freezes after a warm reboot though.

I'm also beginning to think the graphics card is a Radeon 9500 PRO.

Updating the BIOS looks like it could get messy, I don't want to unless it's absolutely necessary.

Cheers.

J

[Naples Air Center, Inc.]

Cool_Hand,

IRQ 11 RADEON 9700/9500 SERIES OK
IRQ 11 Intel(R) 536EP WDM Modem Driver OK
IRQ 11 VIA Tech 3038 PCI to USB Universal Host Controller OK
IRQ 11 VIA PCI to USB Enhanced Host Controller OK
IRQ 11 VIA Rhine II Fast Ethernet Adapter OK
IRQ 11 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering OK
IRQ 11 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering OK

Your IRQs are a mess (as to be expected with today's motherboards and old OS's that only allow 16 IRQs).

First off, if you are not using your COM Ports, I would go into the BIOS and disable COM1 and COM 2. That will free up two IRQs for us. If you are not using the Parallel Port, we could free up yet another IRQ. But only if you do not have a printer or your printer is a USB Printer. If you have a USB Mouse, we could turn off the PS2 Port too, which would free up IRQ12.

Then we need to do something about IRQ11. You have your modem, NIC and Vid Card all on the same IRQ. If your Modem and or NIC are PCI Cards, we need to try moving them to another empty PCI Slot and not use the Slot they are currently in, since it is sharing an IRQ with the Vid Card.

Then I would download the latest ATI Radeon Catalyst Driver (http://www.ati.com/support/driver.html) for your Vid Card.

Take Care,

Richard

P.S. Flashing a BIOS for a Mobo is very simple. Just take a bootable floppy and copy the Flash Utility and the BIOS Image to the floppy. Next boot with the floppy in the Drive. Then run the Flash Utility. ;)

[Cool_Hand]

Com1 and 2 are now disabled, I have a printer in the parallel and my mouse is PS2. At the moment my graphics card is in the AGP slot and my modem is in a special slot just for modems much smaller than any of the others, I'll try and find out what it's called when I locate the motherboard manual.

All of the PCI's are empty, I don't have the computer linked to a network so could I disable the ethernet adapter?

What is the NIC?

I'll try and update the BIOS for the warm reboot problem.

Now that you've highlighted the over used IRQ's I've noticed that there seem to be a lot of repeat items i.e. IRQ 10 and 11 both have a USB controller on them is this normal?

Thanks so far I'll get the catalyst drivers now...

[Naples Air Center, Inc.]

Cool_Hand,

NIC = Network Interface Card.

If your motherboard is a VIA Chipset, you could also update your:

VIA 4in1 Drivers (http://www.viaarena.com/?PageID=2)

As for your USB Controllers, this is normal.

With a non-APIC OS, you will see all your IRQs bunched up, since those OS's cannot handle all the resources in a modern mobo.

Here is a little info on APIC:

Key Benefits of the I/O APIC (http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/sysperf/io-apic.mspx)

Take Care,

Richard

[Cool_Hand]

I meant to add this to the last post, the new IRQ's are:

IRQ 0 System timer OK
IRQ 1 Standard 101/102-Key or Microsoft Natural Keyboard OK
IRQ 2 Programmable interrupt controller OK
IRQ 3 VIA PCI to USB Enhanced Host Controller OK
IRQ 3 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering OK
IRQ 5 VIA OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller OK
IRQ 5 VIA Tech 3038 PCI to USB Universal Host Controller OK
IRQ 5 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering OK
IRQ 6 Standard Floppy Disk Controller OK
IRQ 7 ECP Printer Port (LPT1) OK
IRQ 8 System CMOS/real time clock OK
IRQ 9 SCI IRQ used by ACPI bus OK
IRQ 10 VIA Tech 3038 PCI to USB Universal Host Controller OK
IRQ 10 Vinyl AC'97 Codec Combo Driver (WDM) OK
IRQ 10 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering OK
IRQ 11 RADEON 9500 OK
IRQ 11 Intel(R) 536EP WDM Modem Driver OK
IRQ 11 VIA Tech 3038 PCI to USB Universal Host Controller OK
IRQ 11 VIA Rhine II Fast Ethernet Adapter OK
IRQ 11 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering OK
IRQ 12 PS/2 Compatible Mouse Port OK
IRQ 13 Numeric data processor OK
IRQ 14 VIA Bus Master PCI IDE Controller OK
IRQ 14 Primary IDE controller (dual fifo) OK
IRQ 15 VIA Bus Master PCI IDE Controller OK
IRQ 15 Secondary IDE controller (dual fifo) OK

Do you have any suggestions on how to sort out IRQ 11?
I've also downloaded the winflash update but it doesn't seem to be on a bootable floppy, how do I create one of those?

[Naples Air Center, Inc.]

Cool_Hand,

Format the floppy and then copy the IO.SYS and COMMAND.COM files from C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\EBD to the floppy.

They you will be able to boot with the floppy and Flash the Mobo.

Take Care,

Richard

P.S. The way you clear up the clutter on IRQ 11 is to install Win2K/XP. (As long as your Mobo supports APIC.)