Continued problems - still BIOS related?

Status
Not open for further replies.

macx

Posts: 720   +3
ASUS P4C800E-Del board.
C drive hooked to Primary Master socket
on the board, CD/DVD hooked to Secondary
Master socket on the board.
Both are the only things on the cables
(only the one drive on each cable - no
slaves - and only drive hooked to each
of the sockets). Before the C drive crash,
this is how it was hooked and setup
and all worked perfectly.

Replaced the crashed C drive, reloaded XP.
Had a number of problems at first, like Win
only recognized the C drive and the floppy
but not the other drive or the CD/DVD,
although they were shown in SETUP,
but not in Win in My Computer or in Dev Mgr.
Also in Dev Mgr, there were all yellow question
marks on all the items in "Other Devices"
such as the USB, and there was no sound,
and it said there was no sound card. I had
been successfully using the onboard sound.
Also said there was no BIOS installed.

Went thru the users manual, reset a number
of the settings in various places, and things
got better. The CD/DVD and the other drive
were recognized and worked fine. But the
yellow question marks remained in "Other
Devices" in Dev Mgr and still no sound.
But then on boot, it no longer said there's
no BIOS installed. That puzzles me - like
some of the SETUP settings that I changed
had done something before the change so
that the BIOS couldn't be found??

I downloaded the updated BIOS for that
specific board off the ASUS website and
updated the BIOS on the board with it.
Went in per the instructions with no problem.
I think it was the first restart after the BIOS
upgrade where it gave some kind of error
message on the CMOS. Didn't understand
exactly what it was telling me. Anyway,
went into SETUP and reset a number of things
from Default to where I needed them for my setup.
Then on subsequent startups, that CMOS
error message didn't appear again.
Now all the pre-crash drives besides the
C are recognized again and work fine.
(I've added another large drive for backup,
which is shown on SETUP but not in Windows,
but that may be becuz i haven't "installed"
it yet with the install CD? Anyway - )

But, still no sound and all the yellow Q marks
in "Other Devices" in Dev Mgr. I verified
that the USB Setup is correct - all set on 2.0
and High Speed (manual says all ports are
2.0 hi speed), with AUTO for Legacy USB
devices, and that the onboard sound is AUTO
which is supposed to recognize when any
sound devices are plugged in, i.e. earphones
or speakers. Before, I had headphones in
the front panel and a speaker system plugged
into the back, into the onboard sound. All
worked perfectly.

Then, of course, the PCU fan quit so I had to
quit working with it.

I figurred with the new updated BIOS install that
it might clear up those Other Device and sound
problems, but doesn't seem to have done any good.
Would I be better off reinstalling the original BIOS
from the CD now that the CD drive works?

I've looked all thru the board User Manual and
can't find any clues. Everything worked perfectly
before. Am I maybe missing something in SETUP?
Maybe in the CHIPSET settings or something?

Any ideas or suggestions?

Thanks much!!
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back