Windows 8.1 install issues on nforce4

Crazy Chuckster

Crazy Chuckster

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I have an old MSI K8N Diamond Plus and I am trying to install windows 8.1 on it and it will not work.

I used the windows 7 usb tool to make a windows 8.1 bootable usb stick and that worked on 2 newer pc's but when I try it on the K8N it boots to the win 8.1 logo and does nothing.

I even tried burning it to a dvd and the same thing happens.

Am I missing some trick or something to get this to work? Any ideas out there to try to help?

If it comes down to it I will do a fresh install of win 7 and the upgrade if I have to unless someone can help me figure this out.
 
Maybe fire up Windows 7 on it again and then run the Windows 8 upgrade assistant to see if it's pissed about something?
 
yeah i will have to, i just thought i would ask before i did that to see if i was missing something.
 
Have you disabled the floppy drive in BIOS? Just a longshot based on some googling.
 
Is the ISO from an approved source? I'd double check that it runs and installs in something like VMWare. You said it was a Windows 7 specific bootable USB tool, while it may support other versions my buddy recently had an issue making a bootable USB and used a different tool and it worked.

I say that only because it would do the same thing for him. Stick on the loading screen or it would get half-way through and then just crash. Might be the tool doing something to the ISO that the installation can't get through. Microsoft's OSes seem to be very picky about setting up bootable devices, which personally drives me nuts.
 
You said it was a Windows 7 specific bootable USB tool, while it may support other versions my buddy recently had an issue making a bootable USB and used a different tool and it worked.
Click to expand...

The Microsoft Win7 USB Tool works fine with Windows 8. I've used it for Win8, 8.1, 2012, and 2012 R2. It just extracts the iso and makes the drive bootable.
 
cortexodus said:
Have you disabled the floppy drive in BIOS? Just a longshot based on some googling.
Click to expand...

Yep I woke up this AM and checked and I did have the floppy drive disabled in the bios. I was hoping that was it.


Liger88 said:
Is the ISO from an approved source? I'd double check that it runs and installs in something like VMWare. You said it was a Windows 7 specific bootable USB tool, while it may support other versions my buddy recently had an issue making a bootable USB and used a different tool and it worked.

I say that only because it would do the same thing for him. Stick on the loading screen or it would get half-way through and then just crash. Might be the tool doing something to the ISO that the installation can't get through. Microsoft's OSes seem to be very picky about setting up bootable devices, which personally drives me nuts.
Click to expand...

Yep, it is a Technet ISO and I have used it on the same USB stick to install on other computers so I know it works.


I have Windows 7 loading on my USB stick right now and I will do a fresh install of that and then run the Win 8.1 updater and see what I get from there.

Thanks for the help everyone, I usually dont get stumped but this one is tricky. I will post back how it went with the upgrade from 7 to 8.1.
 
Try changing the drive controller from AHCI to IDE. Windows 8 may not have the proper Nvidia storage controller drivers.
 
bigdogchris said:
Try changing the drive controller from AHCI to IDE. Windows 8 may not have the proper Nvidia storage controller drivers.
Click to expand...

No such option on this aincient piece or hardware :) I am guessing the problem has something to do with drivers but I cannot select AHCI at all.
 
Crazy Chuckster said:
No such option on this aincient piece or hardware :) I am guessing the problem has something to do with drivers but I cannot select AHCI at all.
Click to expand...

On nForce boards... it was probably called something like Compatibility mode or something like that. Probably wasn't called AHCI.
 
I literally fought with this all day yesterday and part of this morning and I am about ready to take a hammer to it :p

I installed windows 7 32bit via usb and tried to upgrade to 8.1 several times and every time it would freeze right at the end of setup at the getting ready screen. I tried upgrading via usb and dvd with the same issue.

At one point it rebooted and decided it would actually start windows 8 setup from the dvd so I thought I was in the clear. It installed and went past getting ready to the first screen on win 8.1 where you choose the computer name and color scheme and WHAM.... it freezes every time there.

Oh well it looks like back to Win 7 for this rig....... I am throwing in the towel.
 
Wasn't there a problem with Vista or 7 on a certain chipset where if you had more than 1 memory module installed it wouldn't complete the setup.

I know I've seen wonky setups with bad memory before. Not saying your memory is bad, but since memory problems can cause this, it might be worth pulling as much RAM out as you can and trying the install.
 
Could be but win 7 installs just fine from usb so I just installed it and will run win 7 until the board dies. I dont have another try in me to be honest.

Amazingly enough being 8 years old it runs flawlessly with an FX-57 processor.

I transitioned all my other machines over to 8.1 and this will be the odd duck out on win 7.
 
I would like to add my experiences with the similar problem, maybe leave it as future reference for other people.

I tried to install Windows 8.1 on an older PC with a GA-K8NF-9 board from Gigabyte (latest released BIOS). It uses the nForce4 chipset and has a Athlon 64 3200+ (Socket 939) CPU in it. I tried installing from a USB drive.

First I tried to install Windows 8.1 64-bit. It showed the little blue windows logo then after 5-10 minutes it would restart. I noticed some error message would pop up for a microsecond, but never could read it.
Turns out, Microsoft introduced additional CPU feature requirements for installing. While Windows 8 required the CPU to have NX, PAE and SSE2, 8.1 also in addition requires CMPXCHG16b, PrefetchW and LAHF/SAH.
The installer checks for this and stops the installation, and the Athlon 64 3200+ do not have the last three.

Then I tried to install Windows 8.1 32-bit since the 32-bit version doesn't have these new CPU feature requirements. It was working, I could finish an install, but when the system boots from the hard drive the first time after the message "Getting Devices ready" it throws a blue screen with WHEA_UNCORRECTABLE_ERROR.
After some trying and tweaking I found out you can complete the install if you disable the Onboard LAN chip in the BIOS before the install (it is called Onchip MAC LAN in the Gigabyte BIOS). The system installs correctly and everything is fine except the LAN... which is pretty important.

Unfortunately this is as far as I have gotten. If I enable the LAN chip in the BIOS and boot the system as soon as it detects the device the system hangs and throws the same blue screen. I tried preinstalling the nForce ethernet drivers without success. As soon as it detects the device, drivers or not, the system hangs.
It seems Windows 8.1 doesn't do well with the nForce4 LAN chip, which is in my case according to the manual is a VITESSE 8201 chip.

If you disable the LAN chip in BIOS and use a network card/USB WiFi for connections maybe you can successfully install the OS.

I hope this information will be helpful for others.
 
hix3r said:
I would like to add my experiences with the similar problem, maybe leave it as future reference for other people.

I tried to install Windows 8.1 on an older PC with a GA-K8NF-9 board from Gigabyte (latest released BIOS). It uses the nForce4 chipset and has a Athlon 64 3200+ (Socket 939) CPU in it. I tried installing from a USB drive.

First I tried to install Windows 8.1 64-bit. It showed the little blue windows logo then after 5-10 minutes it would restart. I noticed some error message would pop up for a microsecond, but never could read it.
Turns out, Microsoft introduced additional CPU feature requirements for installing. While Windows 8 required the CPU to have NX, PAE and SSE2, 8.1 also in addition requires CMPXCHG16b, PrefetchW and LAHF/SAH.
The installer checks for this and stops the installation, and the Athlon 64 3200+ do not have the last three.

Then I tried to install Windows 8.1 32-bit since the 32-bit version doesn't have these new CPU feature requirements. It was working, I could finish an install, but when the system boots from the hard drive the first time after the message "Getting Devices ready" it throws a blue screen with WHEA_UNCORRECTABLE_ERROR.
After some trying and tweaking I found out you can complete the install if you disable the Onboard LAN chip in the BIOS before the install (it is called Onchip MAC LAN in the Gigabyte BIOS). The system installs correctly and everything is fine except the LAN... which is pretty important.

Unfortunately this is as far as I have gotten. If I enable the LAN chip in the BIOS and boot the system as soon as it detects the device the system hangs and throws the same blue screen. I tried preinstalling the nForce ethernet drivers without success. As soon as it detects the device, drivers or not, the system hangs.
It seems Windows 8.1 doesn't do well with the nForce4 LAN chip, which is in my case according to the manual is a VITESSE 8201 chip.

If you disable the LAN chip in BIOS and use a network card/USB WiFi for connections maybe you can successfully install the OS.

I hope this information will be helpful for others.
Click to expand...

Hrm...... I am tempted to try this but the rig is running smoothly on win 7 64 bit right now.
 
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