Newbie: New XP Machine causing all kinds of problems

[Richard Gould]

Hi all,

I recently purchased a new machine to add to my domain. It's in a microATX
case so I bought a Motherboard with Video, Sound and LAN all onboard to
hopefully reduce complexity. But it's been causing my problems ever since.


The onboard LAN seems to "fail" now and again. The IP address seems to reset
to 0.0.0.0 and it can't find the domain controller.

The sound doesn't seem to be working either. It is detected by Windows XP
and
the drivers installed, but even with the latest drivers from windows update
no sound it coming out. I have checked every place I know of where I could
have muted or disabled it but all seems OK.

I've looked through the BIOS and all of the onboard things are enabled and
I've loaded BIOS defaults to hopefully correct any conflicts.

Sorry that the contents of this post are pretty vague so please reply and I
can attempt to clarify any questions that you may have.

thanks
Richard

[Walter Clayton]

Inline...

--
Walter Clayton - MS MVP(WinXP)
Associate Expert
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
http://www.dts-l.org
http://support.microsoft.com/servicedesks/fileversion/default.asp


"Richard Gould" > wrote in message
...
> Hi all,
>
> I recently purchased a new machine to add to my domain. It's in a microATX
> case so I bought a Motherboard with Video, Sound and LAN all onboard to
> hopefully reduce complexity. But it's been causing my problems ever since.

Although this does reduce the number of add-on cards, it causes complexity
issues elsewhere. Such as in diagnostics and general troubleshooting. The
only time integrated functions on the motherboard make sense generally is
when dealing with luggables/notebooks/portables where space is at a premium.
Otherwise, the integrated components tend to cause issues in and of
themselves. One big caveat there is that when it does come down to
troubleshooting, it's not unusual that is virtually impossible to fully
disable the on board stuff to see what happens with a replacement peice of
hardware. Which further complicates troubleshooting.

>
>
> The onboard LAN seems to "fail" now and again. The IP address seems to
reset
> to 0.0.0.0 and it can't find the domain controller.

Yep. When it drops to that address, it's off the subnet and in a strange
state.

You did not indicate whose drivers you're running nor whether or not this is
wired or wireless. Make sure you're running motherboard vendor drivers only
at present. Don't go with chipset vendor until all issues resolved. Are you
getting cable disconnected messages or it it simply reverting to 0's?. The
easiest thing is to slap a $15-25 US NIC in the machine is see if it plays
better. That will tend to point to either cable, if wired network, NIC
issues or if wireless issues between the NIC and gateway rather quickly.

>
> The sound doesn't seem to be working either. It is detected by Windows XP
> and
> the drivers installed, but even with the latest drivers from windows
update
> no sound it coming out. I have checked every place I know of where I could
> have muted or disabled it but all seems OK.

Don't use drivers from Windows Update. Those in and of themselves are
problematic more often than not. In fact it's rare that WU will offer a set
of drivers for a device that are full featured. Usually some feature or set
of features is left out in order to pass WHQL. Use drivers only from the OEM
even if unsigned. And since this is integrated on the MB, use MB vendor
drivers only until things settle down. If MB vendor supplied drivers still
have issues, then slap in a cheap $15-20 sound card and see how that works.

>
> I've looked through the BIOS and all of the onboard things are enabled and
> I've loaded BIOS defaults to hopefully correct any conflicts.
>
> Sorry that the contents of this post are pretty vague so please reply and
I
> can attempt to clarify any questions that you may have.
>
> thanks
> Richard
>
>
>

[Walter Clayton]

Inline...

--
Walter Clayton - MS MVP(WinXP)
Associate Expert
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
http://www.dts-l.org
http://support.microsoft.com/servicedesks/fileversion/default.asp


"Richard Gould" > wrote in message
...
> Hi all,
>
> I recently purchased a new machine to add to my domain. It's in a microATX
> case so I bought a Motherboard with Video, Sound and LAN all onboard to
> hopefully reduce complexity. But it's been causing my problems ever since.

Although this does reduce the number of add-on cards, it causes complexity
issues elsewhere. Such as in diagnostics and general troubleshooting. The
only time integrated functions on the motherboard make sense generally is
when dealing with luggables/notebooks/portables where space is at a premium.
Otherwise, the integrated components tend to cause issues in and of
themselves. One big caveat there is that when it does come down to
troubleshooting, it's not unusual that is virtually impossible to fully
disable the on board stuff to see what happens with a replacement peice of
hardware. Which further complicates troubleshooting.

>
>
> The onboard LAN seems to "fail" now and again. The IP address seems to
reset
> to 0.0.0.0 and it can't find the domain controller.

Yep. When it drops to that address, it's off the subnet and in a strange
state.

You did not indicate whose drivers you're running nor whether or not this is
wired or wireless. Make sure you're running motherboard vendor drivers only
at present. Don't go with chipset vendor until all issues resolved. Are you
getting cable disconnected messages or it it simply reverting to 0's?. The
easiest thing is to slap a $15-25 US NIC in the machine is see if it plays
better. That will tend to point to either cable, if wired network, NIC
issues or if wireless issues between the NIC and gateway rather quickly.

>
> The sound doesn't seem to be working either. It is detected by Windows XP
> and
> the drivers installed, but even with the latest drivers from windows
update
> no sound it coming out. I have checked every place I know of where I could
> have muted or disabled it but all seems OK.

Don't use drivers from Windows Update. Those in and of themselves are
problematic more often than not. In fact it's rare that WU will offer a set
of drivers for a device that are full featured. Usually some feature or set
of features is left out in order to pass WHQL. Use drivers only from the OEM
even if unsigned. And since this is integrated on the MB, use MB vendor
drivers only until things settle down. If MB vendor supplied drivers still
have issues, then slap in a cheap $15-20 sound card and see how that works.

>
> I've looked through the BIOS and all of the onboard things are enabled and
> I've loaded BIOS defaults to hopefully correct any conflicts.
>
> Sorry that the contents of this post are pretty vague so please reply and
I
> can attempt to clarify any questions that you may have.
>
> thanks
> Richard
>
>
>