Nvidia drivers, Boot problems, restart problems all related?????

[FastNOT]

Good Morning,

I've just spent roughly the last 72 hours trying to figure out wtf happened to my PC.

It's an Emachines 6528
Anthlon 3500+ (2200)
160gb HD
Nvidia Gforce 6100 GPU (on-board)
1GB Ram
DVD/CD RW
9 in 1 media reader
M7207 MoBo with Win XP Sp2 and I am up to date with bios and Graphics drivers. From emachines. (actually they state original drivers however I believe one file is newer, nvdis.dll in the 81.33 driver package)

Here's what happened, 1st, I went to restart windows because I updated the NVideo graphics drivers. The PC hung on restart. I held the power button in for 6 seconds to turn it off. When I turned the PC back on, The monitor flickered on then went back into Power saving mode (Nokia 447ZA). So I held the power button in again for 6 seconds. Then hit it again to turn on. Xp booted, (non-safe mode as I've cleverly disabled that ugggh) no apparent problems with log on etc...., so I tried restart again, and SAME thing. Turn off, hold button....blah blah... So I went to sign on to ask some questions and I got a Modem has been blocked error message. (I have dial up so not onboard LAN). WTF?

looked in System info, device manager, niether one listed a modem. Used the controil panel, tried to add hardware, etc.... none to be found.
Used windows shutdown to turn PC off, Swapped Modem to different PCI slot, turned PC on, and SAME thing, Had to hold button in for 6seconds, wait, then hit it again. Windows Still wouldn't find the modem. hm,mmm went and bought a new modem, USrobotics, pci winfax V92.
Windows found a new device, found the modem, I installed the Drivers USrobotics supplied, (NON WHQL when the box said WindowsXP sans LOGO....duhhh) Signed online, everyuthing was peachy, turned off PC.

Next morning turned it on...SAME THING WITHOUT MODEM AGAIN!!!!

MY FiX: I started up in safe mode. uninstalled all NVidia Drivers INCLUDING display ( I tried 3 other versions of this first without sucess) Restarted in normal mode. All the while Double starting the **** PC cus of the hang on boot. The PC will HANG even if I just open the BIOS and then save and exit, and Still hangs on bios exit. Wierd. Then turn off the PC. Unplug the Modem.

Restart in safe mode, uninstall everything in the device manager that says nvidia, AND all the PCI to PCI bridge hadwares, ALL the PCI Ram Controller Hardware, ALL the Display Driver hardware (except VGA) All The PCI Host Bridge Hardware, Finally the Standard Dual PCI to IDE hardware. AND do NOT RESTART. Run Regedit. HKEY local machine. Go through ALL the Friggin Keys and delete ANY reference to Nvidia ANYWHERE you find them...lol I did anyways. Then Restart in Normal Mode STILL had to Restart twice hanging on boot. grrrrr Let windows load all the hardware drivers, then delete the ones that it couldn't find drivers for. (SNmBus, PCI DEVICE except VGA Driver).

Use the drivers from Emachines NOT the Nforce 169.25 Drivers from NVidia, even though the files are all dated the same, sumpthins different.

Then use SHUT Down. DO NOT Restart. Restart in safe mode, let everything load, and point to the folder that has the emachines M7207 MoBO drivers in the Ethernet/ snmbus folder, and the PCI device from the 14707 / SCSI / IDE folder. Then Shut down.

Start up in Normal mode (STILL Double BOOTING) and then turn off the pc (shutdown). Install the Modem,
When you Power up this time magically it should start right up (I have done it twice now) dunno WTF????
Windows will find a simple PCI communications device, then change it into the Modem, and viola, you should be able to restart your PC and One button start it... MAN WHAT A FRIGGIN HASSLE!!!!


If anyone can explain to me WTF I'd sure like to be able to write a letter to someone, LMAO life shouldn't have to be this difficult!!!!

Fastnot

 

[FastNOT]

Update.

I turned the PC on again this evening and the SAME thing started all over. Hung on POST, Video flickered then went into Power save mode, fans at Max RPM, and PC froze. Did the Power Button reset, then turned it on. Booted in safe mode, found new device....simple comm PCI device...wouldn't load driver. Again, I had to delete everything that said PCI, including Bus and uninstall all the NVidia drivers; Shutdown PC : Unplug Modem. Turn it on, Hung on Post...same thing, started up normal, loaded all the drivers for all the PCI bridges, IDE etc.... Shutdown, Turn off, reinstalled Modem, turned it on, everythings fine. I guess as long as I never need to reboot I'll be Fine.


HELP!!!....Anyone?

Fastnot...always slow

 

[Pie_Masta]

Hello, FastNot, have you tried finding updates for Windows XP and/or the Nvidia drivers? If you have, and thus failed, then you should try a System Restore on your computer(if there is one) for before you installed these drivers. Now if there isn't any, please reply.



Thanks,
Pie_Masta,
Newbie Technician - Doing All She Can To Help

 

[FastNOT]

Thanks for the idea, however I tried all the system restore points before I went and bought the new Modem. LOL. Also as soon as I had the first success and had a good startup, with all the right drivers etc... I made a restore point. Still could not restart without a hang...monitor goes to sleep, but hard drive LED stays on for about 3 minutes, then just the PC LED stays on. have to Power reset to shut it off. also have to power reset the first turn on after that, then it will boot, always the Power up hang (once) Power reset offf, Power on to boot. Always two. wierd. So I did a complete restore (with backup) same thing.

MoBo is a
MSI - K8NGM2 rev H silkscreened (REV L according to MSI)
160GB HDD Primary
20 Gb Slave
DVD /CD RW Secondary
nVidia® GeForce 6100 On-Board Video
nVidia® nForce 410 IDE chipsets
AMD® K8 Athlon 64 FX 3500+
512 MB DDR400
(200MHz FSB)
WIN XP SP2
On the MSI Site I've found all the drivers they recomend for this MoBo.
Just went today, silly me I counted on Emachines.
They have AMI bios updates, for the other 2 versions of this board. "Do Not Use on Rev L" yet Emachines just put out a Bios Update, None of the version #'s match though so ???? I'm still researching whether I f### up Flashing the EMachines update. GRRRRRRRRR

I am fairly certain, even if I do a coplete format and restore, I will still have this problem. It's a driver / chipset /bios config thing. I'lll keep playing.

Might just be My PSup but it's 400 WT with a recomended minimum of 300 by MSI I'm good, but the 12VDC CPU output might not be the recomended 18A minimum. Can't find the specs anywhere and of course It ain't on the label. Emachine gettin by on the cheap I'd wager.

MoBo manual says there's a reset jumper for post problems and a system cache Clear switch so I think that's where I'm heading next, then a reflash of MSI's recomended Bios, and go from there. Oh Yeah, MSI has a driver package for the 410 chipset, Completely different Ethernet Driver version from Emachines. but The Bus driver is the Same. (4.26) Ethernet is 50.11
from Emachines, 50.23 from MSI, and 50.43 from NVidia. Dunno if they conflict of course but I've been thinkin sumpthins funny ever since I did the Emachines update in Jan. It just took that long to fail.

Again thx for the input. All is welcome.