Alright boys, what did I do wrong?

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kevineugenius

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Dec 9, 2006
Messages
1,415
The comp:
Intel e6600
Intel Bad Axe D975XBX
4gb G.Skill
7950gx2
250gb HD x2 RAID 0
SB X-Fi Fatal1ty
Win XP Pro

Let me give you a little timeline of what happened:
Two days ago: Went into control panel and add/remove programs. Uninstalled nvidia drivers. Removed 7950gx2 and sold it.
Yesterday: installed nvidia Evga 8800gtx. Yes, both power connectors are hooked up. If it matters, I did have to unplug my SATA drives, but plugged them back in exactly the way they were. The computer took over 20 minutes to boot. It goes through the BIOS things quickly, but once it starts loading Windows, the little blue dots just move reaaally slow. Then it sits at that blue welcome screen. Finally, it booted into Windows and I installed the 8800 drivers, thinking that would fix it. Forced reboot. Took 20 minutes again. When in Windows, things go pretty quickly, not as slow as the boot process anyway. I went into device manager and there is a yellow ! next to Silicon Image Raid Controller, which shouldn't matter as my drives are on the Intel ICH Raid controller. Also, my internet connection works, but I can't do anything with the other PCs on my network.

How in the world did I hose everything so badly?
 
Probably the silicon image drivers got corrupted when you uninstalled the nVidia drivers for the 7950. Try to reinstall them so the yellow "!" disappears.
 
If your not using the silicon raid contralliar then simply disable it in bios. should be the quickest way to check to see if the drivers are corrupt as windows wont load drivers for non existant devices. why would you have the silicon raid controller on if you are not using it?
 
I was just too lazy to turn it off. The yellow ! has been there since day one. Disabled it, and problems persist.
 
dang, this is a weird one. if driver cleaner doesn't work, maybe try a spare graphics card if you've got another, and see if the problem goes away.
 
Alright, there was a BIOS setting for the RAID that I missed, so I turned that off and now it boots just like normal. However, my network is still all screwed up. I have three desktops at minimum on the network, and the other two are still working just fine. On this one, all I have is internet. I have:
changed from static to dynamic IP
changed back to dynamic
rebooted
shared a random folder (there were already a couple shared)
searched for computer names on the network
and I'm running out of ideas. Not only is it stupid that changing graphics cards suddenly triggered a weird bit of chugginess with an unused mobo controller, but now that the NIC is only half-way working, I'm very confused. I did start up CS:S to make sure the graphics card works, and it does (online even) just the LAN half of the NIC doesn't work. I dont have any mac filtering or security on my wired network.
 
kevineugenius said:
Alright, there was a BIOS setting for the RAID that I missed, so I turned that off and now it boots just like normal. However, my network is still all screwed up. I have three desktops at minimum on the network, and the other two are still working just fine. On this one, all I have is internet. I have:
changed from static to dynamic IP
changed back to dynamic
rebooted
shared a random folder (there were already a couple shared)
searched for computer names on the network
and I'm running out of ideas. Not only is it stupid that changing graphics cards suddenly triggered a weird bit of chugginess with an unused mobo controller, but now that the NIC is only half-way working, I'm very confused. I did start up CS:S to make sure the graphics card works, and it does (online even) just the LAN half of the NIC doesn't work. I dont have any mac filtering or security on my wired network.
Click to expand...
hmmmm, you could try the following

a) go to networking in control panel, right click on network and hit repair (you need to make sure the ip is not static) this will clear the dns cache.
b) ensure windows firewall is off.
c) use the original driver install program and select remove the drivers. then use the latest drivers and hit install. dont install the accompaning firewall crap. thats what hard ware firewalls are for. also ensure that no software firewall (other than windows) is blocking pc to pc connection. try pinging the other pcs and them too you.. if this works than well your master computer browser has not fed your machine the network details. this is a network service, simply disable it in two of the three that are hardly on and leave it enabled in the one that is on most of the time. then shut down all pcs, start up pc that has it enabled first. let it be in windows for 5 min then power the others up. give windoz 30 min to update its table and you should be good to go.

another test.. click start => run
enter the following
\\192.168.0.? (enter an ip address of the computer you want to connect too, there must be shared drives in order for you to see it.) also ensure that any settings in your hardware firewall are set to allow pc to pc connection on your ip and mac address.

one last thing i always turn off stuff in my bios i dont use, i turn off all the com ports, printer port, raid (on the ide) onboard sound. all powersaving (my d940 is useless at that being first gen). this will make less work for your mobo controllers and less drivers windows will load at boot. also look for spread spectrum and disable this. used to make pc more stable, it slows the whole computer down too
 
kevineugenius said:
I was just too lazy to turn it off. The yellow ! has been there since day one. Disabled it, and problems persist.
Click to expand...

If you get a yellow on a device that is not longer attached to the motherboard don't just disable it. Remove the device. Then reboot and verify the device is gone. This applies to all peripherals not just video cards. I am far from an expert on video cards but in my experience when you uninstall a driver you should reboot and if it detects the device again just go cancel. In other words you did a full reboot of the system and it booted cleanly without that driver. Just like you often have to reboot after installing a driver, likewise you really ought to reboot after uninstalling a driver.

I also run Ace utilities to clean up stale registry entries.
 
Lol.

I can ping other machines and they can ping me, but using the run command doesn't work either. I have AVG free edition on them all (no firewall) and Windows firewall is on, but I've had gadzillions of networks with that on and it never hurt any of them...

Not sure what this means "this is a network service, simply disable it in two of the three that are hardly on and leave it enabled in the one that is on most of the time. then shut down all pcs, start up pc that has it enabled first. let it be in windows for 5 min then power the others up. give windoz 30 min to update its table and you should be good to go."

The driver reinstall did work though. Drivers hardly ever occur to me because I NEVER have problems with them. Something in the uninstall of the 7950gx2 driver (or booting into safe mode to try getting it to work?) wrecked all my drivers. I suppose I should download the newest ones for everything I have...

Thanks guys.
 
kevineugenius said:
Lol.

I can ping other machines and they can ping me, but using the run command doesn't work either. I have AVG free edition on them all (no firewall) and Windows firewall is on, but I've had gadzillions of networks with that on and it never hurt any of them...

Not sure what this means "this is a network service, simply disable it in two of the three that are hardly on and leave it enabled in the one that is on most of the time. then shut down all pcs, start up pc that has it enabled first. let it be in windows for 5 min then power the others up. give windoz 30 min to update its table and you should be good to go."

The driver reinstall did work though. Drivers hardly ever occur to me because I NEVER have problems with them. Something in the uninstall of the 7950gx2 driver (or booting into safe mode to try getting it to work?) wrecked all my drivers. I suppose I should download the newest ones for everything I have...

Thanks guys.
Click to expand...

the service i am talking about is the master computer browser service. yup i bet the windows firewall is blocking the connection attempts. i have 4 pcs on my network and none use that feature. all i have is a hardware firewall and antivirus. admitedly i only use "user accounts" on my pc. anything i need admin rights for, i right click and go run as. the main admin account has been disable and i made another user admin :)

Try disableing the windows firewall and see if you can connect, remember you need shares on other pcs in order for it to work, best to do the run command \\ipaddress and then press enter.
 
Just out of curiosity, are there any hardware firewalls you can recommend to someone who is a cheap skunk like me? We have one at work, and it's awesome, but it was like $600....
 
kevineugenius said:
Just out of curiosity, are there any hardware firewalls you can recommend to someone who is a cheap skunk like me? We have one at work, and it's awesome, but it was like $600....
Click to expand...

well hmm depends on how much you know about routers and stuff, i use netgear personally. the one i am using now is WGU624, XBOX Live Certified. tho you can always google the model you want to get. it is good to get one that has NAT and SPI (Stateful Packet Inspection). I had a d-link but both of those blew up.. (cloud of black smoke) then otheres have had no troubles with theirs.

PS my work is using $10000 routers :) dam cisco is expensive..... :(

PSS I use http://www.grc.com to test my firewall there is a link called shieldsup.. :)
 
Could it be something to do with the windows guest account? Don't have too much experience with XP pro but with the home edition it buggers up your file sharing if it is turned off.
 
Easykill1978 said:
well hmm depends on how much you know about routers and stuff, i use netgear personally. the one i am using now is WGU624, XBOX Live Certified. tho you can always google the model you want to get. it is good to get one that has NAT and SPI (Stateful Packet Inspection). I had a d-link but both of those blew up.. (cloud of black smoke) then otheres have had no troubles with theirs.

PS my work is using $10000 routers :) dam cisco is expensive..... :(

PSS I use http://www.grc.com to test my firewall there is a link called shieldsup.. :)
Click to expand...

Yeah, I'm sure lots of places have more expensive networking than my business, but my business is used truck parts. Lol, not exactly a high-dollar glamorous industry :)

As per my home PCs, I've always looked at it like this. I can either:
A> Buy insurance, buy anti-virus, protect everything I have, so if something bad happens, it will get fixed
or
B> Dont buy insurance, use free AV, don't worry about what 'might' happen, and the if something bad happens, I will have saved so much money on the other stuff I'll have enough funds to fix it.
 
kevineugenius said:
Yeah, I'm sure lots of places have more expensive networking than my business, but my business is used truck parts. Lol, not exactly a high-dollar glamorous industry :)

As per my home PCs, I've always looked at it like this. I can either:
A> Buy insurance, buy anti-virus, protect everything I have, so if something bad happens, it will get fixed
or
B> Dont buy insurance, use free AV, don't worry about what 'might' happen, and the if something bad happens, I will have saved so much money on the other stuff I'll have enough funds to fix it.
Click to expand...


i use the b veris, not mention a user account (it cant install nothing, so no virus can hit me at all.. if it cant write it cant write :) ) prev poster dont disable guest, mines not disabled tho you cant simply use a web to log in etc. oh and xp pro and home the only diff is that a few extras are installed and other things are enabled.. like being able to easily log into a domain. (tho on home u can registry hack it to do so.. we've done it for fun at my work lol)
 
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