XP SP3 BSOD When making any changes to Parallel Port in BIOS

[ajFranzman]

I have a Windows XP Home 32-bit system, Upgrade SP2 CD install from Win98SE, then upgraded to XP SP3, and all other critical updates installed. The motherboard is an ASUS A7V400-MX, and I have installed all the latest drivers for motherboard hardware and the AGP video card (ATI Radeon 9700 Pro). There's also an Intel 537ep-based PCI modem. The driver/software CD for the modem says BVRP and Xmedia on it but I don't know if either of those companies is the actual maker of the modem; Intel supposedly only made chipsets and not complete modems.

Whenever I try to make any changes to the parallel port in the BIOS, the system crashes to a BSOD at startup, with the following info:

PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA

(...blah blah blah...)

STOP: 0x00000050 (0xFFFFFFE8, 0x00000001, 0x804D9044, 0x00000000)

This even happens if I merely uninstall the parallel port in Device Manager, without making any BIOS changes. Happens if I uninstall in Device Manager, and set to "Disabled" in the BIOS... in short, no matter what BIOS settings I try for the port, whether I uninstall the port in Device Manager first or not, I can only get the system to boot again if I return the BIOS setting for the port to its present configuration (ECP mode) then hit F8 during boot to "Load last known good configuration". I have done some searching online and found that most info on 0x50 Stop Errors says it's probably bad RAM, but MemTest86+ finds no problems with my RAM. I am using MS Windows Security Essentials for virus protection and firewall. Please let me know if there's any other important info I forgot to mention.

TIA for any help you can provide.

Edited April 27, 2011 by ajFranzman

[Ponch]

Have you tried to enable "Reset Configuration Data" (Boot options) after your change, before rebooting ?

Is Plug&Play OS on "Yes" ?

In the "Advanced" menu, are "Ressources controlled by" ...Auto ?

[ajFranzman]

Is Plug&Play OS on "Yes" ?

Yes, in the BIOS "Boot" menu. Should it be set to "No" instead?

In the "Advanced" menu, are "Ressources controlled by" ...Auto ?

In the BIOS "Advanced" menu, under the "PCI Configuration" submenu, "Resources controlled by" is set to "Auto". Is this the setting you're referring to? It took me a minute to find it because of the additional intervening menu layer that you didn't mention.

Have you tried to enable "Reset Configuration Data" (Boot options) after your change, before rebooting ?

This may be the most interesting (perhaps frustrating) item. Although clearly shown in the motherboard User Guide, this entry does not exist in my actual BIOS "Boot" menu screen! I have searched through the other BIOS setup menus as well as I could, in case it was moved between the printing of the User Guide and my BIOS revision (1009), but I was unable to find it.

What do you suggest I do now?

Edited April 28, 2011 by ajFranzman

[allen2]

You might reset the bios settings by using F5 (setup defaults) once in the bios. Then it should ask a confirmation.

As for the current problem, i would remove any pci card and try to see if there any improvement when messing around the parallel port.

Also it might be the IRQ assignment who is root cause of the problem, sometimes on those old boards it might help to assign IRQ manually in the bios (chapter 2.5.3 of your MB manual) as some material didn't work correctly when sharing an IRQ.

Edited April 28, 2011 by allen2

[Ponch]

It took me a minute to find it because of the additional intervening menu layer that you didn't mention.

Sorry you lost a minute because of me. I should have taken a few days off and pass by your house. Instead I just read your post, searched the net for your motherboard's manual, went through it, searched the relevant items, and type a very short note about them. Lazy me.

[ajFranzman]

You might reset the bios settings by using F5 (setup defaults) once in the bios. Then it should ask a confirmation.

As for the current problem, i would remove any pci card and try to see if there any improvement when messing around the parallel port.

Also it might be the IRQ assignment who is root cause of the problem, sometimes on those old boards it might help to assign IRQ manually in the bios (chapter 2.5.3 of your MB manual) as some material didn't work correctly when sharing an IRQ.

Wow, that sounds dangerous... as in, after using F5 to set setup defaults I might then need to go in and make sure every single BIOS setting is back to the way it is now before the system will boot again. I'll try it, but I'll need to have a few hours to spare before I do, so it won't be right away.

Maybe uninstalling and removing the modem will work. I'll try that first.

I don't know about manually assigning IRQs. I think the system might have some shared IRQs. Can those be set manually too? What about the ones that the BIOS setup currently shows as "Reserved", what do I do with those?

It took me a minute to find it because of the additional intervening menu layer that you didn't mention.

Sorry you lost a minute because of me. I should have taken a few days off and pass by your house. Instead I just read your post, searched the net for your motherboard's manual, went through it, searched the relevant items, and type a very short note about them. Lazy me.

Sorry, Ponch, I didn't mean to sound ungrateful, and I suppose I should have provided links to my motherboard manual to start with. You're obviously quite knowledgeable and I do appreciate the help. It's just that another user given the same info might have complained about not being able to find that setting at all... sometimes we noobs need a lot of hand-holding. Edited April 28, 2011 by ajFranzman

[allen2]

Your actual bios settings should be almost defaults (and sometimes loading default clean an inaccessible bios part and solve the problem) but you're right you should store somewhere the settings as some of them might have been modified.

In most case you can't change the reserved ones. In your case, you should look in XP device manager, check on port LPT which interrupt is used then change the view to "Resources by Type" then go to interrupts and check if two devices are using a shared irq.

If yes, and if the device is an add-in card, you can try removing it to see if it solve the problem (you'll have to add it again after on another slot).

If yes, and the device isn't an add-in card, you might try to disable it in the bios (if it isn't something you're using) or you can try to change the resources used by the LPT port (see chapter 2.5.2 of your MB manual). I usually disable all things in the bios i don't use (lpt, com ,midi).

If no, do the same thing with other resources used by the LPT port.

I also see your bios has a lot different settings for the lpt port, the fastest one (should be ECP only) and it should also be the most compatible one so you might try just modifying this value and force a scan hardware for new device in device manager.