Another tech thing: BIOS, hard locks, etc

[Venkman]

Ran Aida32 system tool. Confirmed: Display>3D Accelerator is off.

Also ran DXDIAG: Direct X Features>AGP Texture Acceleration: Not Available.

Also seems to be missing from my BIOS menus. There used to be something in there for AGP. Now there's nothing explicitly AGP. I can set the Aperture size (64mb, 128mb, etc), but that's it. I feel like the card is getting power but not all of the info is being read back from it. It can drive the monitor fine, but it's not pulling down 3D subprocessor stuff for some reason, even though I do now see that pretty like "Preview" thingy in CCC, and 3dmark works.

Maybe it's defaulting to a "software render" mode? 3dmark tests run bad on the monitor but the score isn't terrible. It displays as 0 FPS but seems to be calculating higher. And WoW runs perfectly fine for that 5 minute period before hard lock.

Oh and I confirmed the fan is running fine though still can't tell what the temperature on card is. Can't find anywhere that number is displayed.

Am I hosed? Can I try and reload BIOS 1.0.0.4?

[Trippy]

Ran Aida32 system tool. Confirmed: Display>3D Accelerator is off.

Also ran DXDIAG: Direct X Features>AGP Texture Acceleration: Not Available.

Also seems to be missing from my BIOS menus. There used to be something in there for AGP. Now there's nothing explicitly AGP. I can set the Aperture size (64mb, 128mb, etc), but that's it. I feel like the card is getting power but not all of the info is being read back from it. It can drive the monitor fine, but it's not pulling down 3D subprocessor stuff for some reason, even though I do now see that pretty like "Preview" thingy in CCC, and 3dmark works.

Maybe it's defaulting to a "software render" mode? 3dmark tests run bad on the monitor but the score isn't terrible. It displays as 0 FPS but seems to be calculating higher. And WoW runs perfectly fine for that 5 minute period before hard lock.

Oh and I confirmed the fan is running fine though still can't tell what the temperature on card is. Can't find anywhere that number is displayed.

Am I hosed? Can I try and reload BIOS 1.0.0.4?

Have you tried resetting the BIOS settings to their defaults? You could try downgrading your BIOS just make sure you aren't using your external hard drive. For the AGP Texture Acceleration part it sounds like your AGP miniport driver isn't being loaded. Try reinstalling your motherboard chipset drivers.

[Venkman]

Ya lost me at motherboard chipset drivers :)

I'll take a look. Thanks!

[Trippy]

Ya lost me at motherboard chipset drivers :)

These things:

http://dlsvr01.asus.com/pub/ASUS/misc/utils/nvidia/nvc213_wxp.zip

[Venkman]

I think that did it!

Thanks Trippy. Once I installed those, AGP was being used again. WoW moving at a good clip. I'll run 3dmark now but I'm pretty confident all is right in the world.

Thank you all very much. Now I just need to document this so it don't happen again :)

[Venkman]

so that 40mb seemed to be instant, but really wasn't. It's not a  huge deal, really. Of course, there are lots of other things that matter, like if you're coping internal to the drive.

Good point. For shits and giggles I decided to copy over about 400mb of stuff from external to internal drive.

Took 45 seconds. Or, at least, that's what it told me :)

I don't trust external anything to programs or critical data. I have enough room on the internal drive for that stuff.

[Engels]

Awsome bit of troubleshooting! Gotta hate it when a bios flash resets your AGP port in bios!

[MrHat]

So, summary of problem and solution?

[Furiously]

So, summary of problem and solution?

Computers are not user friendly? The solution is to get a mac.

[Yegolev]

Switch to consoles?

Actually, for the PC enthusiast/masochist, the lesson is apparently that you should update your mobo chipset drivers if you flash your BIOS.  Ancillary lessons are to avoid USB 1.X and ATi cards.

As for external drives, in hindsight you certainly should have put in an internal one.  Unless you can't tie your own shoes, you should be able to install one yourself.  I have three internals with a total of ~500GB of storage.  That's not even close to a high number for three disks these days.  When I upgrade the mainboard to something that has more than two SATA ports, let's just say that total storage in my chassis has the option to become ridiculous.

You also don't need to worry about jumpers with a SATA disk.  So... next time, buy a new mobo.

[Sky]

Avoiding ATI is a dumb lesson. The 9800 is a great card. I'm still using one, and it was playing Oblivion better than a newer AGP nvidia card my friend was using.

Avoiding Catalyst, sure. Omega drivers ftw with ATI.

External drives are great, especially firewire drives. I plan on getting one when I finally get around to digitizing my music collection. Then I can take the full uncompressed collection anywhere (compressed stuff on the ipod I also hope to get soon, do you hear me Santa???).

[Yegolev]

ATi is unfair to some.

If DQ had a FireWire port on his mobo, I'd like to think this thread would not exist.

[Venkman]

Lessons learned:

• USB 2.0 does not work on the a7n266-c board before BIOS rev 1.0.0.1e
• Updating the BIOS requires updating the motherboard drivers
• External USB 2.0 drive works well. Firewire would be better. I got this drive as a gift though from people who wouldn't know Firewire from a Firewall. I have Firewire on the SB Audigy card, and have used with my Video Camera.
  
• Replacing an internal hard drive is extremely easy. As long as you have all of your necessary installation disks.

Biggest lesson learned though: don't flash your BIOS while adding a new card while replacing the hard drive unless you're patient and have some time to troubleshoot.

[Engels]

Biggest lesson learned though: don't flash your BIOS while adding a new card while replacing the hard drive unless you're patient and have some time to troubleshoot.

Very good lesson to learn; there is always the temptation to change a lot of factors at once simply to save time, but that can bite you in the posterior badly if something goes wrong and you have 3 different new variables to contend with.

Also, the video card was fine; the bios AGP settings in the motherboard (Asus) got reset after the flash, and from my understanding, that was 90% of the problem.

[Venkman]

When you say "flash", do you mean "update"? I ask because after I did the BIOS update, I got a checksum error in the BIOS window so actually popped the battery off the mobo, moved a jumper to a clear setting, moved it back, put battery back in and then restarted. I actually have no idea if the act of updating the BIOS is what caused the AGP port problem or if it was the act of reseting the mobo. So, does "Flash" = "Update" and I would just say I "reset" the mobo?

Trying to learn the lingo. To sound smart at least :)

[Furiously]

The Basic Input/Output System (BIOS) - is essentially a software driver that tells your computer how to boot up.

So by reflashing (updating) it, you could have changed the instructions on how the AGP is accessed, it most certainly did for the USB. But when you cleared it by jumping the pins, you erased the variables stored in it. Which probably defaulted to a non-agp card for graphics.

[Venkman]

Ah, perfect. Thanks!

[Engels]

Yep. Whut them other cat person said.

[Furiously]

Yep. Whut them other cat person said.

Uhmm - I have no relation to fur. Does that make Angry Bob = cat bob? or would he be a Bobcat.

[sinij]

I think we have official unofficial ban on talking about furries^h^h^h or you-know-who might get unbanned.

[bhodi]

OOh! Look over there, a shiny new change of topic!

[Yegolev]

Just for terminology, flashing refers to updating "software" that is stored on a piece of hardware.  It is actually refered to as firmware in many cases, such as the machinery that I work on.  It's not called BIOS, it's just called "the firmware", but it performs a similar function.  You generally don't want to update firmware of anything unless there is a bug that needs fixing, but in practice it's just one more thing I have to update from time to time.

Taking the battery out was what reset all of your options.  Maybe even your hardware clock, did you check that?

[Venkman]

Yea, my hardware clock was reset too.

Thanks for the explanation on terms too. So when a device has "Flash-ROM" that means it can be Flashed (written to)?

[Sky]

I'm a dummy for not mentioning that whole 'removing the battery and jumping it reset your settings' bit. Sorry!

Most electronics have flash memory now (as opposed to non-writeable eeprom), even if flash-rom is a bit of a nonsensical term.

[Trippy]

Most electronics have flash memory now (as opposed to non-writeable eeprom), even if flash-rom is a bit of a nonsensical term.

EEPROMs are writeable (Electrically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory).

[Sky]

I'll just shut up now.

[Engels]

Anything that's flash rom basically is coded in assembler so its not like you can whip out some utility and tinker with it. Nowdays you can get BIOS flashing utilities that will run directly from your desktop, so its looks like a simple process, but god help you if half way through your flash it goes wrong somehow.

[bhodi]

I thought I'd bump this for the people who are interested in building their own computer but aren't really tech savvy-- tomshardware's got a nice guide.