Advice on a 64bit system upgrade

[Dave-H]

Den, you are a genius!

All I did was change the switches in boot.ini to what you suggested, and my 16 bit programs started working again!

So simple when you know.

That file is the exact version you stated BTW.

 

I'm still working through a few niggling problems.

One really annoying one is that the PECI alarm on processor #1 keeps going off all the time, although I'm pretty certain that the processor isn't actually overheating! I swapped them over to eliminate the processor itself, and the error is still on #1, which was a relief.

The fans are fine and the heat sinks seem fine, but processor #2 almost always reports "low" whereas processor #1 goes to medium and then high almost immediately at switch on from cold, and the wretched alarm beep is driving me bonkers!

Edited August 11, 2014 by Dave-H

[dencorso]

Runing with case open or closed gives the same result?

If so, exchange the heatsinks, and while at it, clean both processors and heatsinks thotoughly in the parts they contact, and then apply a very thin, but very homogeneous new layer of thermal compund, just before remounting. This is a procedure where practice makes perfect, so doing it once again won't hurt, but may very well help. Moreover, if, after exchanging the heatsinks, the other processor begins to wail, then we may suspect the heatsink, right?

[Dave-H]

Well I've never got as far as putting the case back on yet!

What you suggest is exactly what i was going to try next, although I can't imagine what could be wrong with the heatsink.

The only active bit is the fan, and that is working fine and running at the same speed as the other one.

I will try swapping them though just to eliminate it, it's possible it's clogged up with dirt inside the vanes or something, I'll give it a much closer check this time.

 

On another aside, I've now just noticed that the DEP facility is now all greyed out and unavailable.

Is that what you would expect? It used to say that only software-based protection was available as the processors didn't support hardware protection, now it's disabled altogether.

[submix8c]

1 - Overheating - I don't have "newer" Dual-CPU (only the old P-III Slot) but on (at least) this MoBo, the Heat Sensor is some kind of "stick-up contact tab" kind of thingie. You might want to check that the contact between CPU and Sensor Contact are both clean and fully contacted (*carefully*). Just a possibility.

2 - DEP - Not sure how that works (exactly) but it *does* have something to do with a BIOS setting in relation to the CPU's ability to support it.. Look for this (CPU on this PC does not support it) - Data Execution Prevention (DEP, NX, EDB) - yours undoubtedly has this support. Also, you might note that dencorso suggested using this in BOOT.INI "/noexecute=AlwaysOff" <-disabled it (NX) entirely in the OS. Some people find it to be  nuisance, though. Basically, it's done by Software *and* in conjunction with Hardware (if supported) <-but you knew that.

 

HTH

 

disclaimer - have not and never will claim that I have all the answers, but *sometimes* I'm right.

[dencorso]

On another aside, I've now just noticed that the DEP facility is now all greyed out and unavailable.

Is that what you would expect? It used to say that only software-based protection was available as the processors didn't support hardware protection, now it's disabled altogether.

 

Yes. As submix8c already told you, "/noexecute=AlwaysOff" disables DEP (and the other new switch "/PAE" enables PAE on a processor that supports it). Now, it must have said that "only software-based protection was available" on your previous machine, which was x86, because, AFAIK, all x64 do have "hardware-based protection", as yours certainly do. One of the "benefits" it offers is, as you had the opportunity to experience, to lose the ability to run most 16-bit DOS software! In any case, the really paranoid say DEP is a must, and run with ESET tightned to the max. Myself, I turn DEP off first thing, and never installed ESET. But I do like to use all memory above ca. 3.2 GiB

to create a RAMDisk (I use the Gavotte), so I need PAE. Those switches I suggested result in running XP with PAE but no DEP, while the default is PAE with DEP. Of course, I do run a real-time antivirus (AVG 2011, somewhat tweaked to be less paranoid) and the mandatory firewall at the router (and do have full, up-to-date, back-ups). And no, I really don't want to turn this thread in another discussion about the best way to secure XP, so sorry for the off-topic comment...

[Dave-H]

Thanks again guys, I think if I have to choose between having DEP or running my 16 bit programs, I'll go for the latter!

I seem to have sorted out the overheating problem (touch wood!), although in the best traditions, I have no idea how!

I simply swapped the heatsinks over, and the problem went away!

I have absolutely no idea why, as both seemed to be fine before, although I did notice that the thermal compound on processor #1 seemed to have been only "compressed" on one side, whereas on processor #2 it looked uniform.

I can only think that the heatsink on processor #1 wasn't seated properly, but if that's the case then I must have seated it wrongly twice!

Whatever it was, it does seem to be OK now.

I'm sure pride will come before a fall, but things are now going better with the system than I ever expected.

Windows XP is running very fast indeed, although I have yet to really stress it by doing some serious video rendering or anything like that.

As for Windows 98, I wasn't even expecting it to run at all, so that was a real bonus!

 

One annoying thing that has happened with Windows 98 is that two of the drive letters have become swapped.

They are only data storage drives, the system drives C: and D: are fine.

One, which was drive E: is another permanently connected SCSI drive on a physically separate SCSI disk, and the other, which was F: is a removable IDE drive.

If I remove the IDE drive from the system by simply taking it out of its caddy, the SCSI drive becomes E: as it should be, but as soon as I put the IDE drive back, it becomes E: and the SCSI drive becomes F: which is very annoying.

 

I seem to remember that trying to change drive letters on Windows 98 is an absolute nightmare, and involves using fdisk, a program that always terrifies me every time I use it. There seems to be no way of changing things without destroying all the data on the drive!

The only way I can think of of fixing it would be to transfer all the files off the IDE drive, and then delete its partition and let fdisk reassign it to drive F: and hope it stays there. Any other suggestions?

 

Thanks again all of you for all your help with this upgrade. I really appreciate it!

Cheers, Dave.

Edited August 12, 2014 by Dave-H

[jaclaz]

I seem to remember that trying to change drive letters on Windows 98 is an absolute nightmare, and involves using fdisk, a program that always terrifies me every time I use it. There seems to be no way of changing things without destroying all the data on the drive!

The only way I can think of of fixing it would be to transfer all the files off the IDE drive, and then delete its partition and let fdisk reassign it to drive F: and hope it stays there. Any other suggestions?

 

Naah.

System volumes may be tricky, but not "data" ones (and your memory is fading ).

 

Here :

http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/118119-patched-iosys-for-9xme/?p=768314

Now via Wayback Machine:

https://web.archive.org/web/20080509122247/http://www.v72735.f2s.com/LetAssig/index.html

https://web.archive.org/web/20080401085803/http://www.v72735.f2s.com/LetAssig/Download.html

 

jaclaz

[Dave-H]

Wow, thanks jaclaz!

  to you too!

 

I hadn't forgotten that incident, but that was caused by changing IO.SYS for another version, which isn't the case here AFAIK, so I hadn't thought it relevant in this case. I've downloaded that utility, and I'll check it out later. Why something like that wasn't in Windows 98 in the first place is quite beyond me.

I do have other issues with Windows 98, but I won't bring them up here as this is the XP forum. I'll probably start a thread on the 98 forum when I'm ready, but there are still a few issues with XP that I need to resolve first.

 

The first one, and I don't know when this started happening but I'm sure it hasn't always done it since the motherboard was changed, is that if I shut Windows XP down, after a pause of 5-10 seconds, it always restarts again!

I've checked all the obvious settings, reset the BIOS to its defaults, but it's still doing it.

It doesn't restart immediately, as I said there is quite a long delay, sometimes as much as 10 seconds, but it always restarts.

Actual restarting is fine.

 

The other thing I've just found is that my installation of Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 video editor is now very unhappy.

It relies on running the Adobe Media Encoder to actually export the new media, and when that runs with Premiere still running (as it has to be to export) the splash screen comes up spread over several places on the desktop instead of in the centre where it should be, and it usually then crashes. If you run it by itself it's fine. The same happens if you run the Encoder first, and then run Premiere, that appears all garbled and then crashes. Very strange behaviour indeed, I will have to search the Adobe forums unless it's something obvious!

Edited August 13, 2014 by Dave-H

[jaclaz]

It can be almost *anything* , like (examples):

http://www.techspot.com/community/topics/xp-will-not-shut-down-but-restarts.140038/

 

Is it no that it crashes on exit and then restarts because you have set it up to restart?

In any case that is one of the stupidest default settings, and you really should have it stop on a BSOD:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/247392/my_computer_reboots_when_i_tell_it_to_shut_down.html

 

Adobe apps have a tradition of crashing for *whatever* reason , maybe doing a new install of Premiere would not be such a bad idea.

 

jaclaz

[Dave-H]

That “restart on system failure” setting was the first thing I checked, and it is certainly unchecked!

I found the references to Roxio before as well, but I don't have any Roxio software on the system.

The motherboard has a "watchdog" system which will reboot the system if a program hangs, presumably so that unattended server systems can try to recover, but it is disabled in the BIOS, so I don't think it can be that.

 

Just briefly going back to the Windows 98 drive letters problem, the Letter Assigner program worked fine, and the letters are now as they should be in Windows 98 and in DOS.

They are still reported by fdisk as being the wrong way around though, which is slightly worrying.

I think I might still do what I was going to do, and take the IDE disk out so that the SCSI disk becomes E: properly in fdisk, and then I will re-partition the IDE disk so hopefully then fdisk will make it F: again permanently.

I can easily transfer the files on it to another drive temporarily.

 

EDIT:

Well I now know what is causing the drive letter problem, as even after deleting its partition, the IDE drive is still appearing as disk 2 in fdisk.

The first SCSI drive is appearing as disk 1, which is correct, probably because it's the only disk with an active partition, but instead of the other SCSI drive appearing as disk 2 as it did on the old system, it's appearing as disk 3.

It's drive E: as long as the IDE drive isn't present, but as soon as it is and it's re-partitioned it will become E: and move the SCSI drive down to F: again, which isn't the way I want it!

Changing BIOS settings doesn't seem to alter this, so I'm going to try physically swapping the disks' connections round to see what happens then.

Edited August 13, 2014 by Dave-H

[dencorso]

Found this elsewhere... Please do revise the BIOS events setup, just in case.

"GlowingBlueMist"  wrote:

 

> On 8/15/2010 2:44 PM, PWY wrote:

 

>> When I attempt a soft shutdown, the computer shuts down then immediately

>> restarts. The operating system is Windows XP sp 3 on a Pentium 7

>> Northwood board and processor.

>>

>> Any ideas appreciated.

>>

>> PWY

 

>

> You might want to verify that your motherboard is not set to power back on

> after a power reset (not all motherboards have the option but nice for

> servers).

>

> Possibly your BIOS settings were glitched slightly when you put in the

> other hard drive.

Problem solved.

In the BIOS, "Wake on PME event" was enabled. I disabled it and no more

restarts after shutdown.

Thanks to all who replied.

PWY

BTW, when you have it shut down from 98, does it restart too?

[jaclaz]

I found the references to Roxio before as well, but I don't have any Roxio software on the system.

 

Sure, but the given link adds to it as known sources for this kind of issue:

• Whether or not APM is enabled makes a difference
• USB Connections 
• Wake on” power settings
• Hidden “wake on” power settings (on Ethernet cards properties)
• Y-SB3 Logitech Internet Keyboard
• Logitech MouseWare 8.6
• Webstar DPX USB cable modem

which represent, in my perverted mind , "almost *anything*".

 

jaclaz

[dencorso]

You can use Letter Assigner for 98 and DOS and you can assign the letters of all drives (except the System drive) using Disk Management in XP. Whatever fdisk's "opininion", there's no good reason to start repartitioning HDDs, Dave! The assignements done per the above methods will hold forever, or just until you decide to change them. Let's instead concentrate on finding out what is restarting the machine.

[Dave-H]

Thanks both.

I guess I'll have to live with the 98 drive letter problem at the moment as rearranging the disks' connections makes no difference.

I'll just use Letter Assigner to put them the way I want and forget about it for the moment, although I will raise it on the 98 forum when I start my thread there to see if anyone else has any suggestions.

 

I will check the BIOS settings again for the restarting problem, but I'm sure it wasn't doing it originally when the BIOS was in its default settings, and putting the default settings back doesn't make the problem go away.

All the "allow this device to bring the computer out of standby" settings in the Device Manager are unchecked.

[jaclaz]

I will re-state, this time in a more blunt manner what was said here:

http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/118119-patched-iosys-for-9xme/?p=768314

 

1. FDISK does NOT and canNOT "assign" drive letters. 
2. Under DOS and Windows 9x/Me drive letter assignment is AUTOMATIC and depends on ORDER of devices AND type of partition/volumes, along of set of "rules" that are documented.
3. Here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/51978/en-us .
4. The above points are NOT negotiable, besides being documented they have been tested and re-tested a zillion times by countless users and always found to be true, valid, repeatable (with the exception of "particular", "strange", possibly "wrong" setups as the one discussed earlier in the referenced thread and a few others that may need the "phelum" patch).
5. Exactly because of this impossibility to assign drive letters with ANY of the included tools - call it "limitation" or "feature"  of DOS and Win9x/ME - Letter Assigner was developed.

 

The last character on each of the above numbered points is a full stop or period.

 

Now, please read a few times the points 1. to 5. above, convince yourself that there is NO way to "assign" drive letters with FDISK if not -when possible - to make a setup in which the automatic drive letter assignment is the same as the wanted one, possibly using either the "wrong" standard IO.SYS (that might assign letters in a "wrong" order in a few cases) or the "correct" Phelum patched version (that will assign drive letters according to the rules also in those few "strange" cases), use LetterAssigner (which also has been in use since years with success), call it a day, and please stop beating this poor dead fdisk horse.

 

jaclaz

Edited August 14, 2014 by jaclaz