stuck in safemode

tjk0123 · #1 November 15th, 2002, 04:18 AM

alright if you havent viewed my last couple of posts, here is where i stand with one of my computers. It is an HP 8140 running windows 95. i fried the motherboard and got it replaced just awhile ago. the board itself is a 599LMR(you can check it out at pcwave.com). well i had some troubles getting all the drivers installed and well i finally did. well my problem when it was ok was that it was to slow. when we were setting it up we never configured the CPU to the right speed. well my CPU is a Pentium 200MHz with MMX tech. well when I tried to setup my CPU in CMOS, it didnt seem to work. it wouldnt let me boot to windows. so i went back and changed to what it was set at it and it booted right on up in normal mode. well i tried setting it again but no luck. i was only able to get into safemode. well so once again i tried to fix it but it would not let me and now i can not get into windows normally. only safemode.

now alfons has suggested many things for me to do. 1. i could run a Flash utility for the board with a newer version of the BIOS. but it has to run smoothly or else i will need a new BIOS chip 2. we could find a way to fix the problem but only be able to have the slow speed from before.

we also discussed about buying a different CPU. well since the one i have now doesnt seem to want to setup, we dont know for sure if a new one would work. maybe it would maybe it wouldnt.

so my question to anyone, is what should i do? i mean what would you do if you were in my situation? i think i want to try and run the flash utility and the new version of BIOS.

Alfons or anyone, could you direct me in the direction on how I do this?

this site seems to have the BIOS and the Flash utility but i dont know how to use them or if they are right.

http://www.eurocomla.com/m598_d.htm#M599LMR

i really dont know what to do. should i just take it to a local shop and see what they can do? i called one back awhile ago and they said it would be $50 minimum to just run diagnostics or whatever on it to figure out the problem. decisions decisions

**jtdoom** · #2 November 15th, 2002, 04:54 AM

Hi

I have stayed out of the previous threads, because you was getting superb help
Heck, if you know me at all, you are GLAD i stayed out...

anyway, I have a question

some people get fooled by the appearance of the scree and think they are in safe mode when they are actually running normal, with only 16 colors...

so, the question is
does the screen actually pop up the safe mode warning when it boots?

tjk0123 · #3 November 15th, 2002, 04:57 AM

yes, it has safemode in all 4 corners of the screen

, and i know it is also because thats all i can choose to do. from the menu i mean. when i try to start in normal or anything else, i get a black screen wiht the cursor blinking at the top left.

**smurfy** · #4 November 15th, 2002, 10:26 AM

Hi again tjk0123. I have also been hanging back a little here to try to ensure you don't get confused by to many different opinions.

Allow me to make a few observations:

The difference between 166Mhz & 200Mhz is so negligible, even if you had got it working at "full" speed, it probably wouldn't have solved your perception of lack of speed.

The motherboard you have purchased to replace the original is quite different in specifications to the old HP 8140's board (Asus TX97). The biggest difference is that you are now using a board with AGP on-board video & USB . This means, by and large, even experienced techs are going to struggle to get it to work with any flavour of Win95. (I know, MS says USB & AGP are supported in Win95b and above but they also say a lot of other marketing garbage

)

A few user reviews here:
http://www.sysopt.com/userreviews/mb...s_M599LMR.html

The fact that you managed to get this system to boot with Win95 at some point is nothing short of miraculous.
The fact that it stopped working after you upped the processor speed in the setup MAY have just been coincidental with Win95 realising this board had stuff on it that it has no idea how to use so it has hung itself.

My recommendation:
Either:
1) Upgrade to Win98
2) Reinstall Win95 after disabling on-board AGP video in BIOS setup and installing a PCI Video Card.

**smurfy** · #5 November 15th, 2002, 10:35 AM

p.s. I'm talking from pure experience here - I have an HP 8100 open next to me with an Asus TX97-XV board - Win95 installs on it just dandy.
The machine I am using now uses an ASUS p5b board (from another HP) with a very similar setup to your new board - SIS630 chipset, on-board 8mb shared AGP video, Micro ATX and there's no way I can get a stable Win95 on it.
Thankfully though, my ASUS board still uses jumpers to set CPU speed so I haven't had the joy of the CPU p'n'p problems you are having.

tjk0123 · #6 November 15th, 2002, 01:25 PM

well after reading some of those reviews, would it be a good idea to just get a new MB? if i were to reinstall win95 from where i stand now, i would get that old speed of 166MHz back and ur saying that im not going to notice much between that and 200MHz right?

well, how about for now i just reinstall win95 and get it back to what it was like before. that is what ur talking about under #2 of your recomendations? would i do this by booting with the bootdisk, select cdrom support, format drive c:, and then run win95 setup?thanks

Alfons · #7 November 15th, 2002, 03:18 PM

It just crossed my mind that there are two other possiblilities for Windows that we have not tried:

1. Ghost Devices: you mentioned that in safe mode you see some devices in Device Manager that have problems. These could be ghost devices (not really there) and should be removed and then restart the machine to see what happens. I have a feeling that this/these devices are in fact one of the built-in cards that you haven't installed drivers for and haven't disabled on the motherboard, so it would be a good idea to disable the device and I'm not sure now whether it's the Modem or the Network Adapter but you should disable everything that you're not using (read your Manual on where the jumpers are & check your BIOS to see if there are any Enable / Disable items for these devices there).

2. USB Device: Based upon Smurfy's advise re USB & W95, I'd recommend that you disable all BIOS references to USB since you have nothing that uses it anyway.

Those are the last two things that have come to mind that you could try as far as Repair goes.

tjk0123 · #8 November 15th, 2002, 09:31 PM

ok i removed everything from unknown devices, switched the BIOS to disable USB, diabled the things i dont use and u still get that black screen.

is it possible for me to reinstall windows 95 once again and just have it the way it was with 166MHz? and then maybe later on get a new board or something? or is there soemthin else? thanks all for your help

**smurfy** · #9 November 15th, 2002, 09:59 PM

Hi, if nothing else, this has been a great learning experience for you.

The only thing you have to lose at this point is time.

If that machine was sitting on my desk what I would do is:
Set BIOS to everything you WANT (i.e 200Mhz). Disable USB & on-board AGP.

Boot with bootdisk.
Reformat C:
Reinstall Win95.

Reinstall Drivers from PCChips - one item at a time and do a few complete boots, shut downs etc between each install to ensure system is stable before going to the next one.

If/When it hangs itself again you should have a pretty good idea what caused it so you can go back to the start and leave out that step next time.

tjk0123 · #10 November 16th, 2002, 02:38 AM

well i went into CMOS, and set everything up like u said(what i wanted i mean). i set the CPU to 200MHz and reformated C:

i installed windows95 again and it went totally fine. got into windows and installed the video,sound, and IDE drivers all one at a time. its working fine now. restarts and loads windows everytime.

but that should hold me off for now. christmas is coming and maybe all ask for a new MotherBoard, and new CPU. any suggestions on ones to look for? thanks for all of your help

**jtdoom** · #11 November 16th, 2002, 03:31 AM

hey
what will you get for your nephew?
:-S

tjk0123 · #12 November 16th, 2002, 03:35 AM

lol

**Murf** · #13 November 16th, 2002, 04:21 AM

WINDOWS 98

450Mhz CPU

tjk0123 · #14 November 16th, 2002, 04:50 AM

What about the MB? new one or keep this one? lol

**Murf** · #15 November 16th, 2002, 05:19 AM

Thats with that motherboard. You need to get Windows 98 or Windows 2000 to invcrease your performance ist, regardless of which motherboard.

Now if a new motherboard and CPU are A GIFT then golly go for that....

The mobo you got enabled you to use most of your existing hardware.

One of the problems you have is your AT case, almost all newer motherboards at ATX and may not work in your case.. May work depending how the back of your case is configured.

Now that you have installed a motherboard, the next time will be easier.

What you have to determine is>

1. What existing components do I want to reuse i.e., memory, video, sound.., this will drive the kind of board you get.