Timbo33

Dear all,

Have just re-built myself a nice PC - used the AMD Duron 1GHz bundle from Maplins - new Motherbpoard, Chipset and fan + new case and have added a CD re-writer.

Have also bought new 40Gb disk as existing 1 is only 3.2 Gb partitioned into 2.2Gb (C and 1.0Gb (D

All was well and happily running Win 98 but the C: drive wasx getting pretty near full so I did a 'disk cleanup' and trashed a load of bits of Windows the system told me I don't use....

...end result I lost Iexplorer and so rather than pi55 about with
trying to rebuild it, as I'm getting NTL Broadband this week, I upgraded to Win2k Pro.

Everything works fine except the PCI modem and when I looked in Device Manager, the PCI bus is not installed correctly, hence the modem.

Tried re-installing drivers from the Motherboard CD-ROM but no joy

What puzzles me is the Graphics card hangs off the PCI bus and works fine?

Any ideas?

Am I just a meddling amateur? (don't answer that!!)

GavinP

Which COM port does the modem card use ?

Have you disabled it in the BIOS for the motherboard COM ports ?

If COM2 on the motherboard is enabled and the modem wants to be COM2, the motherboard normally wins....

Thanks

Gavin

BarryK

You will almost certainly have a modem not in the genral support of W2k.

Go online to the modem mfrs site (oh dear!) and get the latest drivers. What make/model is it? Has the disk you got with it (both modem and m/board) got drivers for Win2k?

Apologies if u done this already (obviously I am joiking about going on-line, but someone else could send u drivers on a CD if they knew what you needed.

devils_ad69

Timbo,

I'm sure you are now wise after the event but taking backups of your system BEFORE doing anything dodgy like 'disk cleanups' is STRONGLY RECOMMENDED.

Also, don't quite understand why up upgraded your O/S when all you had to do was get IE fixed.

Glad to hear that you are getting sorted though....

Timbo33

Cheers chaps...

Gavin, when I try to reinstall the modem driver it gives me achoice between COM1 and COM2, I think I picked COM1.

I've got the Modem manufacturer's disk and it has a Win 2k driver which seems to install o.k. but when I look in 'Add/Remove hardware' the modem and the PCI bus are shown as 'not working properly which puzzles me 'cos as I said, the Graphics card uses the PCI bus and works fine...

BarryK,

Yeah cheers m8, thought about the going on line bit, and could use my laptop (what I'm using now) but i don't have A CD write on it. I would expect the driver would be too big to go a floppy?

But as I said above, the Modem driver seems to install o.k. the system just can't see the modem 'cos the PCI bus is knacked...


Gavin,

Are you saying I can disable the Motherboard COM port without affecting anything else?

Dev'sAd..

Didn't have a sufficiently large backup device....have now got a 20Gb Lacey USB drive to connect but don't want to mess with more than 1 problem at a time. The other irritating thing is I can't install my new hard drive without downloading the installer from Seagate's website as the drivers on the CD-ROM don't sem to support Win2k.

Why did I upgrade to Win 2k? seemed like a good idea.... was going to do it anyway and thought I'd have to go through Windows setup to reinsatll IE5 so thought I might as well save myself a job (famous last words...)

Is there any mileage in going back to Win 98 do you reckon?

I had a few error messages when I installed Win2000 and I'm told Win2k doesn't work past errors as well as 95 and 98. The thing that bugs me is the PCI driver....the manufacturer provides a CD-ROM with all the necessary installation stuff but it doesn't seem to do anything.

I'm wondering if the drivers supplied don't support Win 2k hence the query about reverting to Win 98.

Dohh!!!

devils_ad69

Timbo33,

I dunno enough about Windows to advise what you should do next. The point that I was trying (ableit badly) to make is that if you have a problem with A don't do B if B isn't at all related to A.

If I had a problem with A, I would fix that problem and then ses about doing B.

Either way, Windows is crap! Hope you get sorted.,

fast bloke

Timbo - go into the bios when you are booting up. It usually prompts you to hit delete or F10 or something to enter setup. You can disable COM2 here. Delete and reinstall the modem using com2 as the choice. If it is an older modem (pre V90) there may be a jumper setting to select Com 1, 2, 3 or 4 on the actual modem itself. You need to make sure this matches your other selection. Could also be an IRQ conflict, but unlikely if your graphics card is working. Could be a conflict between IO addresses on your graphins card and modem as they will use a shared IRQ on the PCI bus.

Ian Cook

One question, i cant see for certain in whats gone before, you did mention "upgrading" to Win2K !!!! did you upgrade over win98 and into the same folder ? if so thats why it isnt working ! its fighting with Win98 drivers and it doesnt like it ! Best bet is to reinstall win2k into a clean directory ie call it win2k or something equally imaginitive it should work ok then

Timbo33

Guys,

Thankyou all for your help so far....

The Modem problem got cured by deafult when NTL installed my cable modem which is a USB device and so IE5 is all up and running with a LAN connection rather than dial up (anyone want a nearly new 56k v90 modem?).....Also much faster now so I can get tooled up for Counterstrike!!!

Once done, I managed to get into Seagate's website and got the install drivers and formatting/partitioning wizard for my new 40Gb drive - all o.k.

Then decided it was a good time to do a clean install of Win2k in case the things Ian described were the cause of the problem.

This went o.k. to the point where Windows 'checks my system to install devices such as mouse.....' where it promptly hung and I had to reboot. On re-boot the autodetect on the C: drive failed and so I had to power off and re-start.

2nd time the autodetect was o.k. but Windows install hung at the same point.

I'm on about my twelfth go now and I think it's finally got past that part as I disconnected the USB devices which include the modem...looks like It's going to take me all day!!!!

Dev'sAd...you're right, Windows is crap!!! (Take me back to my VMS and UNIX days......you knew where you stood with 'del *.*;*')...
and Windows 2000 seems to be totally crap!!!

Tiggs, why did I let you convince me to upgrade?????? Win98 seemed to actually be much slicker in the plug 'n'play department. I'm seriosly thinking of retrograding...

Anyone else had bad experience?

Timbo33

PS

Just to let you all know that my systme is back!!! It looks like the USB devices were confusing the install so by pulling them, it all went o.k.

I'm probably going to have to reinstall the modem and digital camera but that's better than slitting my wrists after destroying 500 quid's worth of hardware out of sheer frustration!!!![img]images/smilies/mad.gif[/img]

Now I've got the big disk, I'm doing my backup (Cheers Dev'sAd..)

Once done, I can fdisk the 'C:' Drive (Had to put the quote marks other wise you get a smiley face..!!!:

And then I'll reinstall Windows...though I'm seriously thinking about going back to '98....any comments?

Will also remember to burn a Boot disk this time!!! Windows always use to prompt for this if you went into setup but it doesn't on 2000.....a bit of an oversight I feel, as I didn't make one before the last install as I was expecting the prompt during the process.