Oh geez, need help from fellow techs

Factual Questions
1

Hey Guys and Girls,

Here’s the scoop.

Picked up my system today, here’s the stats:

ABit BE6 MoBo
Pent III 600
128 MB RAM
Western Digital 20 GIG Ultra 66 HD
40x CDROM
Creative PCI 128 Sound card
Elsa Erazor 3, 32 MB video card
AOpen 56K Voice/Fax Modem
Netsurf PCI 10/100 NIC
Iomega 100 MB Zip

Here’s my problem.

I had them install Win 95 (I wanted NT, but the video card uses IRQ 11 but NT doesn’t like it)

Anyhow, I had them pop on Win95, which I assume was Win95b with USB and PCI bridge support. I needed to install DUN, but unfortunately, with the size of this drive they “couldn’t” place the Win95 cab files on and install from there. My Win95 is older than the one they installed so I couldn’t pull off DUN from my CD.

I reformatted, reinstalled Win95 but am getting IRQ conflicts with the hard disk controllers (if I remember correctly, they are conflicting with the PCI devices).

The modem (first time I have ever heard of this brand) also doesn’t work. It’s not conflicting directly, but it can’t communicate. A window pops up saying that it can’t read the registry settings…this is a new one on me, even after a complete install.

I don’t have the NIC card drivers installed, so I am pretty sure there is nothing there that is a problem.

I REALLY want to stay away from Win98…I work with it at work and find it is not as stable < stop laughing > as Win95.

Any ideas? I lost my IRQ settings sheet, but somehow this seems directly related to the version of Win95 that I have as I was on the phone and didn’t check that all the hardware was working before I reformatted…gads, I really need to get back in the groove again!

I am banging my head against the wall to figure this out. After 3 hours of tinkering something isn’t clicking so I am hoping one of you may have the answers.

2

Pull all your cards (the ZIP wouldn’t be a bad idead either) and reformat, then reload before you install any cards.
Try making a win95 directory on the HDD and copying the directory on the CD of the same name over and running the setup from the hard drive itself. You will need a bootable floppy that has CDROM support on it to do this. Or you can boot to the CD if you have a bootable CD.
Install the cards that you have drivers for. If the OS loads right, the cards should install correctly, but here’s the catch.
You’re using 95! Even if it’s 95B, you may need to load some bus mastering controllers so that your PCI bus works right. As 98 does not need these, you may want to consider it. But I am 97% sure that this is your problem:
You don’t have the bus mastering (PIIX4) drivers loaded.
So try that.
On a side note: You like 95 better than 98?
Blasphemy. You’re 100% right though, as it is more stable, but how do you live without stuff like SFC and Scareg and msconfig?
I like 98 a lot better, but I’m glad I don’t have to use it at work just the same…
And another thing, lady. I have a bone to pick with you…
Why didn’t you just e-mail me? I can help you, and you just ignore me! Wutupwidat?
A half hearted :wink: as I really want to help you…

“Winners never quit and quitters never win, but those who never win and never quit are idiots.”

3

i really recommend going for win98
i dont know what problem you have with it, but ive used it with no problems, and it runs much better than 95.

also, you might want to check out win2000, its very nice !

Check out my site:
Chief’s Domain

4

The Win98 problems you’re hearing about are probably from the upgrade version. Try the full installation version (it’ll say for PCs without Windows) – you’ll get much better performance from it.

“Tip your hat to all good people, living or dead, but bend your knee to no one.” – Alan Schwartz

5

Santi,

Thanks hun.

I was able to get rid of the IRQ conflicts, yet I am still running under a compatibility mode problem. I think it’s because my drive is configured at the full 20 GIG and not partitioned.

The modem perplexes me though. I downloaded the current driver for this modem, but it (the exe file) runs under DOS, weird, and got an exception error.

Also, the registery issue comes up under Device Manager. When double clicking on the modem it states “Cannot read Port name from Registry”. This is a new one, something I have never seen before.

I read bootlog.txt. Only 3 files came up as failed; ndis2sup.vxd, vshare, sdvxd. Any ideas?

=========

As for the rest of you, I support 30 Win98 machines (95% are full version Sec. Ed with all the updates from MS’s site) …I run into more problems with 98 than I ever have with 95. Yeah, it may be my only choice, but I will go kicking and screaming the entire way…I deal with too many 98 problems as it is I really don’t want to add to that on my own machine.

Win 2000, I might consider it, but I rarely go with a new OS till after the first 6 months of real life usage.

==========

Sniff Sniff, I wanna play with my new toy. This old fart (the one I am on now) is still kickin butt but is too slow to even create Flash pages for the web < sigh >

Anyone with any other suggestions? And Santi, I didn’t even think of it, but well you know…it’s a blonde thing < grin >

6

Hmmmm. Are you sure it’s 95b? If so, you shouldn’t have a problem seeing the whole drive, assuming your BIOS can handle it.
Was it an exception 0E or 0D? Maybe the download got smurfed up. Or maybe it’s because *you haven’t loaded any bus mastering drivers since the format! I know you know what I’m talking about, you have to! But maybe you didn’t reload them or something. Maybe they (whoever you bought it from) didn’t send them. I don’t know, but if you’re using 95b and haven’t loaded these things, no wonder you’re having problems.
I tell ya, if you did what I said, it would be fixed by now. :wink:

“Winners never quit and quitters never win, but those who never win and never quit are idiots.”

7

Ohh, how cute! My first UBB mistake. Someone take a picture.

“Winners never quit and quitters never win, but those who never win and never quit are idiots.”

8

Santi,

It see all but 1 GIG, course some of that is used by Windows.

Yes, I have Win 95b installed, I spose I should review the CD, but I think, what some call Win95c is the one that has the PCI and UBS fixes on it. I could download the damn things if I had access to my modem.

My Win95 CD is late 97 or so. I know that on later Win95 CDs it has the USB and PCI patches on them.

Come to think of it, I have had problems with a machine just like my old one and it recognizing PCI cards. (Same OS ver. same MoBo etc…)

I got the NIC card running, so I 'spose tomorrow I will drop on by the computer store and get a couple of patch cables. I have a hub, I haven’t put together a network using only Win9x products so this aught to be interesting. If I could I would run Win NT on it!

9

The big thing is you got a whole lotta new stuff in made way after W95 came in the picture so it can’t recognize most of it at all. Thus W98 ought to do it. Sorry, but you really should consider it. Avoid SE.

Hey, why don’t you push CTRL when its starting, select from the menu Bootlog.txt, let it all go as far as it can, then let us see the log it made so we know what won’t load. But, as I said before you got a whole lotta stuff on there it knows nothing about.

10

Um . . . buy a Mac?

(ducking and running)

11

[hijack/rant]

Does it seem completely absurd to anyone else that its so hard to set up a computer & install peripherals. I mean, reformatting and reinstalling all your cards one at a time?

About a month ago my computer (well, just win95) was down for a week because I [gasp] tried to install a printer.

Aargh. Sorry, just bitchin. I hope you get it all worked out techchick. If you’re feeling particularly brave and don’t care about MS programs or games, you may want to go with linux or beos, I’ve had way less (0) device related problems with them.

I think my next computer will be a mac.
[/hijack/rant]

12

I ended up getting disgusted at internal modems. I constantly had problems with them. They always seemed to be the flakiest and most fragile of my components.

So I got me an external modem. Costs a bit more, but worth every penny.

Win 98 has many more drivers than 95b. The biggest problem with 98 is really IE 5.0. At home I’m running 98 (original) with IE 4.2 and all the upgrades from http://windowsupgrade.microsoft.com and my system seems very stable.

Against stupidity the very gods / Themselves contend in vain.

13

I agree with phouka.

14

If you wanted a 32 bit Server OS (NT), my suggestion is to maybe try a completely different OS. Have you thought about going UNIX? for the machine you bought (nice rig, by the way), There are plenty of good UNIX systems available. You can get Solaris from Sun Microsystems’ website (Hardware | Oracle) for cost of media and shipping ($20), Linux for free by download or about $30 to buy a boxed set with cd’s, Free/Open/Net BSD (same costs as Linux)…

UNIX has a higher learning curve though. It’s a real brainer OS. But the cool thing is that there’s always more to learn. It’s are WAAAAAAY more stable than any version of Windows, and comes ready to be a server right out of the box. I’m using Linux [RedHat 6.1] as a Primary NT Domain controller, DSL connection, Firewall, HTTP/Mail Server, and Internet Gateway for a 10 machine network at my home, and I go approximately 3-4 weeks between reboots. The only reason I reboot that often is that I’m always trying new weird things, and since I’m not a skilled admin I tend to make mistakes (translated as “hose my system”). :slight_smile:

If, on the other hand, you’re really attached to windows, a format/reload is in order. It sounds like the guys who did your install were sorta incompetent, not to mention that it sounds like they ripped you off with your OS…it’s technically against the law for them to install windows without giving you a cd (especially if they charged you for it), and an OEM install always puts the cab files on the hard drive.

Just my $.02…

Oh,what’s that? So now you say life sucks?
Well, 99% of it’s what you make of it…
So if your life sucks, YOU suck!

Joe_Cool

15

JoeCool,

I have two legal copies of Win95 plus BackOffice, they used my CD Key to install it but both my Win95 versions are older than the one they used to install it.

The problem is, my version of 95 does not have the USB/PCI support pack. Which is my compatibility mode issue.

The modem, is another story. It may be related to the PCI support I need and am waiting for an email from the tech department.

It’s just pisses me off that, me, one that supports an entire office of machines including Win NT WS, Win 95, Win 98, 2 NT Servers and 1 Novell server, can’t for the life of me figure this out. I think it’s one of those things where I need to step back and ask for help rather than beat my head against a wall. Something all tech’s should do if things are not clicking.

16

Singledad,

I run Win95 with IE 5.0x on this machine and it runs just fine. I rarely have a problem except that I constantly have to reboot because I run out of resources. I plan on keeping this old horse around though, even if it’s back can’t handle a software (resource hungry) like Photoshop.

< sigh >

17

Techchick,

I 'm gonna throw my $.02 in also, FWIW.

I’m with you on this one. I don’t care who says it and how loudly, Win98 sucks and Win95 is what I’m sticking with too.
At work I have to support NT and Win98, and I won’t subject myself to it at home. I want something that runs all the time, and none of this Blue Screen of Death shit.

You are also right about another thing. Take a step back, maybe do something else for a couple of hours. Then look at it again, and you will find that little setting or the damned file, or whatever that will fix everything. I’m a blonde too, and have learned this is necessary on occasion. :wink:

Carpe Jugulum

18

TechChick,
I have a couple of suggestions.
First, search the registry for an entry named “NOIDE”. If you find it then delete it. Then reboot and see if it comes out of compatibility mode. Windows puts that in the registry if it has trouble dealing with an IDE controller and it never tries to get them out of compatibility mode as long as the entry is there.
Second, I use that modem a lot, including in my own system. Windows doesn’t usually set it up right during an install. In “device manager” look for it under “modems” and delete it, then look under “unknown devices” for communications controller, delete it, too. Then remove the “modem enumerator” under HCFModem. Then reboot, let windows find it and install the driver off the CD. It doesn’t install like a regular modem since it only emulates the DOS port & IRQ, so there isn’t a COM port to assign it to until it is completely installed.
Third, by my count, unless you have disabled one of your on-board COM ports then you don’t have enough IRQs to go around. The modem doesn’t use the common COM port IRQ. Mine uses IRQ 10 and then emulates COM2/IRQ3 for DOS programs. If your system list the PnP devices when it starts up, check and make sure they are all there with IRQs assigned.

Hope this helps.

Jim

19

About OS:

GO WITH WIN2000 Professional! So far, it got rid of any problems I ever had with WIN95 and WIN98. This is a well tested piece of software from MS. I am not sure about WIN2000 Server and Advanced Server, but thats another story.

About internal modems:

Many modems that may not be advertised as WinModem are actually a WinModem - mostly software driven. We switched from WinModems to 3Com 5610s (a true non-WinModem) and all PCI problems disappeared.

20

If you are gutsy you can have W95 & W98 both on the same machine. Use a boot selector.