Anyone using an ASUS P4P800-E Deluxe?

[nlmd311]

?
Did you have any problems installing it? I have found loads of issues on the internet people have had with installation, drivers, and BIOS problems, but no solutions...

thanks

-Darrill

[apropos of nothing]

Pretty much the same can be said about any motherboard you'll find. The only ones that don't have such laundry lists are those announced but not shipped. It owes variations in chipsets as to how they deal with data IO with peripherals, memory and CPU.

[oobedoob]

having a specific problem, or just fishing?

FWIW mine came up without any hardware hassles.

[ctmsound]

Been running that motherboard for 8 months now, not a single problem. SOLID.

[nlmd311]

having a specific problem, or just fishing?

FWIW mine came up without any hardware hassles.

Yeah. Specific, and kind of fishing at the same time I suppose. For whatever reason when the machine starts up, it will not read the drive (hard drive installed with Win XP Home, and my audio some-whats and so-forths), nor will it read the disc that is in the DVD-ROM drive which has the drivers for the motherboard. It ends up taking me to a screen saying that I can restart from Safe Mode, from a previous version of BIOS settings that may have worked better, or wait 30 seconds until it attempts to restart windows itself. ?
Very strange, and even more annoying than anything. I just want it back up and running! I have never seen this before. And have never had a problem like this. I also have an SATA drive (brand new) that I am going to install once the board gets up and running, but I can't run from that until I get the drivers in.
I just can't figure it out. Technical support hasn't been any help at all, and all the FAQ questions on the site seem like a whole other mess that I might just be leading into once I get past this first hurdle.
Should I just wipe the drive (containing Win XP) and start from new? Is that completely necessary in this case?
I made sure everything I had was completely compatible before I purchased the motherboard, so I don't think it has anything to do with the bits and bobs, but if it is any help it contains:
P4 2A GHz, 2x512 Kingston PC3200 DDR, Matrox G450 AGP, Maxtor DiamondMax Ultra ATA 200GB Hard drive, Seagate Barracuda SATA 160 GB Hard drive.

If anyone has any ideas, I am all ears.

-Darrill

[apropos of nothing]

Ohhhh.

I think I see what's happening. Did you just swap the new mobo for the old one expecting Windows to just cope with it?

Cuz the likelihood is that doesn't happen.

Does it work alright if it boots in safe mode?

If I'm right, and you did just swap the mobo without uninstalling the devices that were associated with the old mobo, you may need to:
Boot to safe mode (which loads the bare-bones complement of drivers needed for the computer to function), uninstall the bulk of the stuff in the device manager associated with the IDE/ATA/ATAPI Controllers, Floppy Controllers, Network adapters, System Devices, and USB Controllers. Once you've done that, then install the device drivers for the current mobo. Having done all that, you should be able to reboot and everything be fine. I hope.

...At a guess. Am I in the ballpark?

Windows doesn't like having its "world" disrupted like that. It gets verrrry confused.


Update us on progress, aight?

[apropos of nothing]

PS: That's a nice lookin' system.

[nlmd311]

Ohhhh.

I think I see what's happening. Did you just swap the new mobo for the old one expecting Windows to just cope with it?

Cuz the likelihood is that doesn't happen.

Haha, yeah. Kind of. But, I had a good feeling it wouldn't be that simple. Stick with me...

Does it work alright if it boots in safe mode?

No. That is the thing that is frustrating me, but atleast makes me happy to know that I was on the somewhat correct path. When I select enter Safe Mode, and press Enter... it goes through the boot process again, but just returns me to the same screen offering the same Safe Mode options, etc.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhh. Help!

If I'm right, and you did just swap the mobo without uninstalling the devices that were associated with the old mobo, you may need to:
Boot to safe mode (which loads the bare-bones complement of drivers needed for the computer to function), uninstall the bulk of the stuff in the device manager associated with the IDE/ATA/ATAPI Controllers, Floppy Controllers, Network adapters, System Devices, and USB Controllers. Once you've done that, then install the device drivers for the current mobo. Having done all that, you should be able to reboot and everything be fine. I hope.

Is there another way to uninstall, or remove the old junk, and get me on my way? What about if I tossed the old board back in and yelled at it? I feel so pitiful.

thanks for the help

-Darrill

PS, thanks for the PS!

[apropos of nothing]

Yeaaaahhhh...

Um. You could put the old mobo back in, uninstall those device drivers and then swap back.

Or you could just do a clean install.

Oh, wait a minute. That's got RAID on the motherboard. Hmm. Have you tried rearranging which IDE ports you've got your HD plugged into? Cuz windows might not like it much if its plugged into the "secondary" (RAID) IDE chain. That might be the source of the problem right there. I had similar hassles when I got my toy. Drove me nuts for the better part of a week.

[ctmsound]

NEVER just swap motherboards and expect windows to accept the change. Won't happen, nope, nada, not gonna happen.

Back up your files and proceed with a complete reinstall. You'll thank yourself. Think about it, you could spend an hour backing up files and reinstalling or spend the whole day(s) trying to "troubleshoot" what could be an endless problem relating to driver compatibility, etc.

[nlmd311]

Yeaaaahhhh...

Um. You could put the old mobo back in, uninstall those device drivers and then swap back.

Or you could just do a clean install.

Oh, wait a minute. That's got RAID on the motherboard. Hmm. Have you tried rearranging which IDE ports you've got your HD plugged into? Cuz windows might not like it much if its plugged into the "secondary" (RAID) IDE chain. That might be the source of the problem right there. I had similar hassles when I got my toy. Drove me nuts for the better part of a week.

Yeah, I have swapped the cables and connections tons of times over the last week or so trying to figure anything and everything in-between.
Yikes. Well. I hate to say it, but it sounds like my best shot and cleanest break. If I go ahead and do the swap and put the old board back in, and uninstall that way... should I be able to uninstall from the installation cd that came with it? There is no mention of that in the manual of course. If not, how would I get into Safe Mode, or What would be the best way to be sure to get all of the individual files out and gone?

I want to be as thorough as possible.

-Darrill

[nlmd311]

NEVER just swap motherboards and expect windows to accept the change. Won't happen, nope, nada, not gonna happen.

Back up your files and proceed with a complete reinstall. You'll thank yourself. Think about it, you could spend an hour backing up files and reinstalling or spend the whole day(s) trying to "troubleshoot" what could be an endless problem relating to driver compatibility, etc.

Yeah. Well, I live and I learn. I know very little about any of this stuff and am trying to learn (obviously the rough way, and the most frustrating... not necessarily for me, but to those who I may end up asking along the way!). So yeah. I guess I will give it a go tomorrow. I need to put the old board back in place anyway to be able to back everything up once again to be sure. I only backed up my audio last time and need to make sure I get a few other tads here and there. Hmmm. Anything else before I ruin my junk?

thank you very much

-Darrill

**edit** Add on another question to this...
What do you do in the scenario that you are adding an existing (non-new) drive to a new motherboard, in which you already have everything backed up? Is this only a problem with drives which have an OS installed, or would this be the case all the way around? What do you do to get your backed-up drive into the "new setup" without having to wipe it clean and lose everything?
It's late. I will quit while I am behind.

[apropos of nothing]

Sorry I haven't gotten back to the thread for awhile.

How ya doing over there?

The best way for you to go with a new mobo install is a clean install of windows and then use the driver CD.

I can't really recommend trying to continue to use the current install with the new mobo. If you have any friends who are super-Windows savvy and you're really bound and determined to pursue that path, you might ask them for help on which devices to uninstall. The relevant ones are probably any special additions on the IDE/ATA/ATAPI Controllers that are specific to the chipset of your old motherboard, same with Floppy Controllers, onboard network adapters, some amount of the system devices tab, and USB Controllers.

But again, I don't think its a good idea. I might do it if I was feeling like really fucking with my computer on a given week, but I'd be super-hesitant about it, and probably end up doing a wipe and reinstall anyway.


Re: your question about adding a blank hard-drive to a system, one would generally add the hardware, boot to windows, open My Computer, find the "unformatted drive", right-click on it and select format, at which time one is prompted for FAT-32 or NTFS which are the two varieties of file-system that Windows supports. Pick your poison and go. There are some other ways.

If one was replacing a HD in a system, yeah the fresh install off of Windows disk is the best option. There're other ways to do it, but they're complicated or expensive. One could use Norton Ghost to make a copy of the system drive, and then "restore" it to the new drive. I've used a brute-force copy from a dos prompt, and it ended up working, but I can't really recommend it.


Anyway, I strongly predict a new Windows install in your immediate future.

Hope that's kinda helpful in that "God dealing with Windows is annoying" kind of way.

Best of luck. Let us know as it develops.

[nlmd311]

Thank you for all the help.
The last couple of days have been nuts, but as of 15 minutes ago everything is up and working smooth as peanut butter (not chunky!!!), with only one exception... I will get to that in a second because I need some help.
Yes. After backing everything up, wiping the drive and doing a fresh install of Windows it was no sweat (for the most part). Great advice. Thanks guys.
The only issue I had which lead up until just a few minutes ago was getting SONAR to actually function properly, if at all and work with the 828. After downloading the newest drivers and updates for both the MOTU and SONAR respectively all is working great.

Now the only problem I have is that the second HD (new, Seagate Barracuda 160 GB SATA) is not showing up under My Computer. It is recognized in BIOS, and also under the computer's control panel hardware display. I have not found a way however for it to be formatted, or even make it appear on the My Computer window. ? Any ideas? If I could get that going I would be about as happy as can be!

thank you once again for all your help. Up until yesterday I was about to throw this thing through a wall and go back to my cassette four track, which is just too much fun by the way if anyone has one they have neglected like I had been up until the last couple of weeks.
all the best

-Darrill