Thanks for the reply! This is an Intel motherboard (I think it has an 840 chipset) and the Dell documentation recommends turning off power management in the CMOS setup, which has been done. They recommend that for both Windows 95 and for Windows 98.
Another suggestion on the MIcrosoft web page was to turn off the L2 cache. I can't find any way to do that on this motherboard. There are no controls for this in the CMOS setup, and no jumpers on the board to control L2 cache.
There is no AGP slot, so the video card is already a PCI card (one of their recommendations was to remove the AGP card).
I'm wondering if the problem is that I don't have a Dell issued installation Windows installation disk. I have the Windows 95 Disk that the previous owner gave us with the computer, but it is a standard Microsoft OEM installation CD and does not have a Dell logo, as is usually the case. I have a Microsoft Windows 98 upgrade disk that I have also tried to install with (not with a Dell logo). Windows 98 just locks up the first time it tries to boot during the setup process. I've tried clean installs with each, after running fdisk and format. I format with FAT32,
When I go through the step by step startup and don't load the windows drivers, then it doesn't boot at all. I wonder if Dell packages some drivers on their Windows installation disks and that is what I'm missing? If so, how do I get a Dell CD?
There were problems with Win98 ACPI in some of Dell's laptop BIOSes for early members of the CP series. A registry fix was shipped with BIOS updates for those machines that forced Win98 to run in APM power management mode as a workaround. I wonder if there's a similar problem with the Dimension XPSM series? Did you try the "Force APM 1.0" suggestion in the Microsoft article?
I thought there was a way to change the power management settings from the screen listing the detected machine options during setup, but I can't find anything about that. You might try saying "no" to the question about whether the listed options match the machine, and see what you can find.
Dell didn't distribute Dell-branded Win98 media. The CDs were Microsoft-labelled. At that point, licensing was enforced by having a copy of the manual that contained the OEM serial number on its cover, and entering the serial number into Setup when asked. There was no "activation" needed for any system before XP.
You might try posting in the Dimension/General Hardware board and see if anyone there has any ideas.
I'll go back to the Microsoft article and read that part again. I'm not sure how to "Force API 1.0". I'll play with it some tonight.
When I couldn't get Windows 98 to boot, I went back to Windows 95, thinking it may be more compatable with this computer. However, I believe that Windows 95B had a lot of the Windows 98 features in it. I've heard that it was a beta for the first release of Windows 98.
I wonder if it would help to see if I can get a BIOS update from Intel for this motherboard? I downloaded lots of Dell documentation on this computer. There was a lot of information about the motherboard, jumper settings, etc., but nothing about who the manufacturer was. It did mention that it uses the Intel 840 chipset. Maybe Dell has put something strange in the Bios? I did flash it to the lastest versino (A10). Didn't make much difference in the way it works.
This must be a fairly common problem on Dell computers, as I did a search on "configmg" on the Dell forum and it came back with about ten pages of postings, most of which were very similar to what I'm seeing. I've been working with Windows on all kinds of PCs for the past ten years or so, and I've never see this particular message before.
I can download a Dell diagnostic onto five floppies. I'm about ready to do that and see if it picks up a hardware problem. I'm working for free on this and can't afford a lot more time on it.
I'm looking through all the Dell Forum posts now. I see "majestic" thought you'd have better luck in the Win98 board than the Dimension/BIOS board. I hope he's right!
I confess I gave up after reviewing about half the posts. I didn't find any worthwhile suggestions, and many references to Microsoft's q187612 article.
It's unlikely that there's a BIOS from Intel that will work with the Dell motherboard. Dell BIOSes expose very few low-level chipset controls, like disabling Level 2 cache. That can increase the difficulty of troubleshooting problems like this one.
Maybe I'm being a pessimist, but I doubt you'll find any problems if you download and run the diagnostic floppy set.
Are you trying this with a Win98SE CD? There were a lot of fixes on that one!
(edit) Here's a potentially useful link to
Intel's chipset drivers. It includes downloads for the 840 chipset for Win98 and Win98SE.
I followed the directions on the Microsoft site to force the APM 1.0 mode, but with Windows 95B loaded, there is no APM device in the device manager of control panel. That must be a Windows 98 feature. I'll reload Windows 98 2nd Edition and see if that makes a difference.
I have tried both Windows 98 and Windows 98 2nd Edition. Same problem. I agree that the 2nd edition is a lot better than the original Windoes 98.
I found a good article on the Microsoft site that addresses Windows 98 hanging up when it tried to do the first boot. That is what I'm seeing with Windows 98. I ran out of time last night. Tonight I want to reformat again, load Windows 98 2nd Edition and then run through the steps in the Microsoft article. It has an advance troubleshooting section and reading through it, it looked promising. It has you turn off most of the devices in the device manager table (running in SAFE mode) and then get it to boot and then turn them back on one at a time until you find the one with the problem. That may be an interesting experiment to run. I'm not sure what to do when I find the device driver that is causing the hang, but maybe at that point I can get some help from either Dell or Microsoft. Guess it could be a defective motherboard.
I have gone into the CMOS setup and turned off everything that I don't need, including the serial ports, parallel port, USB, on-board sound, power management, and I can't remember what else. Didn't make any difference.
I'll post my results along with the reference to the Microsoft article.
Thanks for hanging in here with me. This is becoming quite a challenge. If I value my time, I'd be ahead to buy a new motherboard, replace it and give it to the Church. But, guess I'm learning something here.
I believe power management was introduced with Win98. Second edition's definitely the better version of Win98. TCP/IP network support was greatly improved, among other things.
Can you post a link to the Microsoft article you found? That sounds like a good approach, as does disabling everything in the BIOS that's not needed to get the system to start.
This one definitely turned into a learning experience!
Been busy and had to set this aside for a couple of days. The Microsoft Article I was referring to is Article ID 262381 "How to Troubleshoot Computer Hangs During Hardware". I also found helpful Article ID 180902, "How To Start a Windows 98-Based Computer in Safe Mode".
I went through this first article and tried everything recommended. I found that Windows continued to hang on the first boot (trying to find and install devices). I was not able to get it to go into SAFE mode until I tried several different things to get it into SAFE mode. FInally I found that booting with the Control Key down, would takeme to the screen with the various boot options. If I selected the option to set through the setup step by step and they skipped that last step, which is to load the windows drivers, then it would take me into SAFE mode. Once there, I tried all the various methods listed in this article, but none of them led me to a solution. When I got to the "Advanced Troubleshooting with Msconfig.exe", I got to the Device Manager and found only the computer icon and one more. I can't remember which one it is right now. So, that didn't do anything for me.
I tried to check the log files, but found someof them missing and those there, had no information that was of help. Setuplog.txt was not there.
I didn't try the suggestion to install Windows in a new folder. Maybe that would find a problem.
I am starting to really wonder what is wrong with this computer. Tonight I downloaded the Dell Diagnostic program. When you execute the file, it creates five diskettes. YOu load them into the Dell computer (all five of them), then the diagnostic program runs. I've been running it for 45 minutes now and it is only through some of the tests. So far, nothing has been found to be defective. I told it to run all the tests. It does a very, very thorough test of the hard drive, (4 GBytes) which takes a long, long time. It is still running.
I'm starting to wonder if this computer model, Dimension XPS M233S, ever ran Windows 98. I have built many computers using the Intel 233 MHz Pentium processor and never had any problems loading Windows 98.
If you are still with me, do you have any suggestions at this point. If this diagnostic program doesn't find anything, I'm ready to declare failure and thash this piece of junk and get on with my life.
I took another look at Google for
XPS M233S win98, and there were enough hits that it sounds like some people have been able to get Win98 to run on that motherboard. Leaving off "win98" yields hits that include articles about problems getting power management to work with Linux. That's still what this problem seems to involve. One suggestion I saw was to pull the CMOS battery out and leave it out overnight, thereby removing all settings from the CMOS. That seems extreme, given that you're reset the BIOS to its defaults already. Have you reseated everything in the machine that can be reseated, especially the memory and the power supply?
Given that you're reformatted the hard drive, installing into a new folder doesn't sound worth trying.
Like you, I've run out of ideas. It'll be interesting to see if the diagnostic finds anything, but unfortunately, most operating systems tend to be better at stressing things than diagnostics are, so I'll be surprised if anything is flagged.
Does anyone else have any ideas about how to salvage this machine?
I ran the diagnostics last night. It took a very long time to test the IDE disk drive. I finally went to bed around 12:30 AM and left it running. I got up at 6:00 and it was still running. It had progressed to the CDROM test and was finding read errors. I had a cdrom in the drive that I had created and I suspect it was trying to read past the area where there was data stored. I finally aborted it as it was failing on every read (at the high end of the disk media). I then had to reload the five disketts (took a long time) and restart the diagnostic. I put a different cdrom in (a commercial one) and ran the cdrom test again and it passed every test, including the read test. I went back and re-ran a bunch of the tests, especially the processor and memory and PCI tests, and everything passes. Other than the cdrom read error, everything checks out.
There have been lots of people read these postings, do any of you have any suggestions. I'm about out of ideas.
I reviewed the entire thread, and the only stone we may have left unturned is this one, from an earlier post of mine...
Here's a potentially useful link to Intel's chipset drivers. It includes downloads for the 840 chipset for Win98 and Win98SE.
Did you look into that?
I don't think there are any Dell-specific Win95 or Win98 CDs. There are specific Dell drivers that aren't on the Microsoft CDs that can be downloaded through the "Product Support" downloads popdown at the top left corner of the Forum page, but I think you already know about those.
If you're right about Win95B incorporating some of the power management features that weren't present in the original Win95 release, I wonder if an earlier Win95 CD would work. The implicit assumption is that this is in some sense a power management problem may be incorrect, but the way the system fails in CONFIGMG suggests that it is...or else the thing's broken!
I used a jumper on the motherboard to reset CMOS parameters. I think that does the same thing as taking the battery out. I have reseated all the components on the motherboard. I've moved the SDRAM chip back and forth between the two sockets. I've tried the video card in three different PCI slots.
I just started a new thread as the problem now is that Windows 98 hangs on the first boot during setup. Maybe somone will see my new post and have a fresh idea. I've read pages of posts and see nothing posted that I haven't tried.
Jim, I really appreciate all your replies and your good suggestions.
Wonder if I can get a DELL system CDROM for either Windows 95 or Windows 98. Either of these operating systems will work for the application we want to run at the Church.
jwatt
4.4K Posts
0
November 8th, 2004 05:00
In spite of the fact that this Microsoft article refers to a completely different motherboard, did you try forcing APM 1.0 mode as it describes?
Jim
veehb
9 Posts
0
November 8th, 2004 17:00
Jim,
Thanks for the reply! This is an Intel motherboard (I think it has an 840 chipset) and the Dell documentation recommends turning off power management in the CMOS setup, which has been done. They recommend that for both Windows 95 and for Windows 98.
Another suggestion on the MIcrosoft web page was to turn off the L2 cache. I can't find any way to do that on this motherboard. There are no controls for this in the CMOS setup, and no jumpers on the board to control L2 cache.
There is no AGP slot, so the video card is already a PCI card (one of their recommendations was to remove the AGP card).
I'm wondering if the problem is that I don't have a Dell issued installation Windows installation disk. I have the Windows 95 Disk that the previous owner gave us with the computer, but it is a standard Microsoft OEM installation CD and does not have a Dell logo, as is usually the case. I have a Microsoft Windows 98 upgrade disk that I have also tried to install with (not with a Dell logo). Windows 98 just locks up the first time it tries to boot during the setup process. I've tried clean installs with each, after running fdisk and format. I format with FAT32,
When I go through the step by step startup and don't load the windows drivers, then it doesn't boot at all. I wonder if Dell packages some drivers on their Windows installation disks and that is what I'm missing? If so, how do I get a Dell CD?
Vee
jwatt
4.4K Posts
0
November 8th, 2004 21:00
There were problems with Win98 ACPI in some of Dell's laptop BIOSes for early members of the CP series. A registry fix was shipped with BIOS updates for those machines that forced Win98 to run in APM power management mode as a workaround. I wonder if there's a similar problem with the Dimension XPSM series? Did you try the "Force APM 1.0" suggestion in the Microsoft article?
I thought there was a way to change the power management settings from the screen listing the detected machine options during setup, but I can't find anything about that. You might try saying "no" to the question about whether the listed options match the machine, and see what you can find.
Dell didn't distribute Dell-branded Win98 media. The CDs were Microsoft-labelled. At that point, licensing was enforced by having a copy of the manual that contained the OEM serial number on its cover, and entering the serial number into Setup when asked. There was no "activation" needed for any system before XP.
You might try posting in the Dimension/General Hardware board and see if anyone there has any ideas.
(edit) I found a link to an updated Win98 power management troubleshooting tool in the section of this article entitled "Power Management Troubleshooting". That might be worth looking at.
Jim
Message Edited by jimw on 11-08-2004 03:40 PM
veehb
9 Posts
0
November 8th, 2004 22:00
Jim,
I'll go back to the Microsoft article and read that part again. I'm not sure how to "Force API 1.0". I'll play with it some tonight.
When I couldn't get Windows 98 to boot, I went back to Windows 95, thinking it may be more compatable with this computer. However, I believe that Windows 95B had a lot of the Windows 98 features in it. I've heard that it was a beta for the first release of Windows 98.
I wonder if it would help to see if I can get a BIOS update from Intel for this motherboard? I downloaded lots of Dell documentation on this computer. There was a lot of information about the motherboard, jumper settings, etc., but nothing about who the manufacturer was. It did mention that it uses the Intel 840 chipset. Maybe Dell has put something strange in the Bios? I did flash it to the lastest versino (A10). Didn't make much difference in the way it works.
This must be a fairly common problem on Dell computers, as I did a search on "configmg" on the Dell forum and it came back with about ten pages of postings, most of which were very similar to what I'm seeing. I've been working with Windows on all kinds of PCs for the past ten years or so, and I've never see this particular message before.
I can download a Dell diagnostic onto five floppies. I'm about ready to do that and see if it picks up a hardware problem. I'm working for free on this and can't afford a lot more time on it.
I do appreciate your suggestions.
Vee
jwatt
4.4K Posts
0
November 9th, 2004 04:00
I'm looking through all the Dell Forum posts now. I see "majestic" thought you'd have better luck in the Win98 board than the Dimension/BIOS board. I hope he's right!
I confess I gave up after reviewing about half the posts. I didn't find any worthwhile suggestions, and many references to Microsoft's q187612 article.
It's unlikely that there's a BIOS from Intel that will work with the Dell motherboard. Dell BIOSes expose very few low-level chipset controls, like disabling Level 2 cache. That can increase the difficulty of troubleshooting problems like this one.
Maybe I'm being a pessimist, but I doubt you'll find any problems if you download and run the diagnostic floppy set.
Are you trying this with a Win98SE CD? There were a lot of fixes on that one!
(edit) Here's a potentially useful link to Intel's chipset drivers. It includes downloads for the 840 chipset for Win98 and Win98SE.
Jim
Message Edited by jimw on 11-08-2004 11:38 PM
veehb
9 Posts
0
November 9th, 2004 16:00
Jim,
I followed the directions on the Microsoft site to force the APM 1.0 mode, but with Windows 95B loaded, there is no APM device in the device manager of control panel. That must be a Windows 98 feature. I'll reload Windows 98 2nd Edition and see if that makes a difference.
I have tried both Windows 98 and Windows 98 2nd Edition. Same problem. I agree that the 2nd edition is a lot better than the original Windoes 98.
I found a good article on the Microsoft site that addresses Windows 98 hanging up when it tried to do the first boot. That is what I'm seeing with Windows 98. I ran out of time last night. Tonight I want to reformat again, load Windows 98 2nd Edition and then run through the steps in the Microsoft article. It has an advance troubleshooting section and reading through it, it looked promising. It has you turn off most of the devices in the device manager table (running in SAFE mode) and then get it to boot and then turn them back on one at a time until you find the one with the problem. That may be an interesting experiment to run. I'm not sure what to do when I find the device driver that is causing the hang, but maybe at that point I can get some help from either Dell or Microsoft. Guess it could be a defective motherboard.
I have gone into the CMOS setup and turned off everything that I don't need, including the serial ports, parallel port, USB, on-board sound, power management, and I can't remember what else. Didn't make any difference.
I'll post my results along with the reference to the Microsoft article.
Thanks for hanging in here with me. This is becoming quite a challenge. If I value my time, I'd be ahead to buy a new motherboard, replace it and give it to the Church. But, guess I'm learning something here.
Vee
jwatt
4.4K Posts
0
November 9th, 2004 19:00
I believe power management was introduced with Win98. Second edition's definitely the better version of Win98. TCP/IP network support was greatly improved, among other things.
Can you post a link to the Microsoft article you found? That sounds like a good approach, as does disabling everything in the BIOS that's not needed to get the system to start.
This one definitely turned into a learning experience!
Jim
veehb
9 Posts
0
November 12th, 2004 04:00
Jim,
Been busy and had to set this aside for a couple of days. The Microsoft Article I was referring to is Article ID 262381 "How to Troubleshoot Computer Hangs During Hardware". I also found helpful Article ID 180902, "How To Start a Windows 98-Based Computer in Safe Mode".
I went through this first article and tried everything recommended. I found that Windows continued to hang on the first boot (trying to find and install devices). I was not able to get it to go into SAFE mode until I tried several different things to get it into SAFE mode. FInally I found that booting with the Control Key down, would takeme to the screen with the various boot options. If I selected the option to set through the setup step by step and they skipped that last step, which is to load the windows drivers, then it would take me into SAFE mode. Once there, I tried all the various methods listed in this article, but none of them led me to a solution. When I got to the "Advanced Troubleshooting with Msconfig.exe", I got to the Device Manager and found only the computer icon and one more. I can't remember which one it is right now. So, that didn't do anything for me.
I tried to check the log files, but found someof them missing and those there, had no information that was of help. Setuplog.txt was not there.
I didn't try the suggestion to install Windows in a new folder. Maybe that would find a problem.
I am starting to really wonder what is wrong with this computer. Tonight I downloaded the Dell Diagnostic program. When you execute the file, it creates five diskettes. YOu load them into the Dell computer (all five of them), then the diagnostic program runs. I've been running it for 45 minutes now and it is only through some of the tests. So far, nothing has been found to be defective. I told it to run all the tests. It does a very, very thorough test of the hard drive, (4 GBytes) which takes a long, long time. It is still running.
I'm starting to wonder if this computer model, Dimension XPS M233S, ever ran Windows 98. I have built many computers using the Intel 233 MHz Pentium processor and never had any problems loading Windows 98.
If you are still with me, do you have any suggestions at this point. If this diagnostic program doesn't find anything, I'm ready to declare failure and thash this piece of junk and get on with my life.
Sorry if I sound discouraged, but I am.
Vee
jwatt
4.4K Posts
0
November 12th, 2004 05:00
I took another look at Google for XPS M233S win98, and there were enough hits that it sounds like some people have been able to get Win98 to run on that motherboard. Leaving off "win98" yields hits that include articles about problems getting power management to work with Linux. That's still what this problem seems to involve. One suggestion I saw was to pull the CMOS battery out and leave it out overnight, thereby removing all settings from the CMOS. That seems extreme, given that you're reset the BIOS to its defaults already. Have you reseated everything in the machine that can be reseated, especially the memory and the power supply?
Given that you're reformatted the hard drive, installing into a new folder doesn't sound worth trying.
Like you, I've run out of ideas. It'll be interesting to see if the diagnostic finds anything, but unfortunately, most operating systems tend to be better at stressing things than diagnostics are, so I'll be surprised if anything is flagged.
Does anyone else have any ideas about how to salvage this machine?
Jim
veehb
9 Posts
0
November 13th, 2004 03:00
Jim,
I ran the diagnostics last night. It took a very long time to test the IDE disk drive. I finally went to bed around 12:30 AM and left it running. I got up at 6:00 and it was still running. It had progressed to the CDROM test and was finding read errors. I had a cdrom in the drive that I had created and I suspect it was trying to read past the area where there was data stored. I finally aborted it as it was failing on every read (at the high end of the disk media). I then had to reload the five disketts (took a long time) and restart the diagnostic. I put a different cdrom in (a commercial one) and ran the cdrom test again and it passed every test, including the read test. I went back and re-ran a bunch of the tests, especially the processor and memory and PCI tests, and everything passes. Other than the cdrom read error, everything checks out.
There have been lots of people read these postings, do any of you have any suggestions. I'm about out of ideas.
Vee
jwatt
4.4K Posts
0
November 13th, 2004 05:00
I reviewed the entire thread, and the only stone we may have left unturned is this one, from an earlier post of mine...
Here's a potentially useful link to Intel's chipset drivers. It includes downloads for the 840 chipset for Win98 and Win98SE.
Did you look into that?
I don't think there are any Dell-specific Win95 or Win98 CDs. There are specific Dell drivers that aren't on the Microsoft CDs that can be downloaded through the "Product Support" downloads popdown at the top left corner of the Forum page, but I think you already know about those.
If you're right about Win95B incorporating some of the power management features that weren't present in the original Win95 release, I wonder if an earlier Win95 CD would work. The implicit assumption is that this is in some sense a power management problem may be incorrect, but the way the system fails in CONFIGMG suggests that it is...or else the thing's broken!
Jim
veehb
9 Posts
0
November 13th, 2004 05:00
Jim,
I used a jumper on the motherboard to reset CMOS parameters. I think that does the same thing as taking the battery out. I have reseated all the components on the motherboard. I've moved the SDRAM chip back and forth between the two sockets. I've tried the video card in three different PCI slots.
I just started a new thread as the problem now is that Windows 98 hangs on the first boot during setup. Maybe somone will see my new post and have a fresh idea. I've read pages of posts and see nothing posted that I haven't tried.
Jim, I really appreciate all your replies and your good suggestions.
Wonder if I can get a DELL system CDROM for either Windows 95 or Windows 98. Either of these operating systems will work for the application we want to run at the Church.
Vee