XfX GeForce 8200 mobo doesnt boot Linux or Windows
 

Oddly enough the title pretty much gives it away. In Linux, passing "pci=nomsi" to the kernel before it boots generally helps it "find the hard drive". In windows however, it wont even install. It loads all the components then when it says its starting Windows, it comes up with an error, just gives a code, no explanation.

Now granted this has more to do with Windows then Linux but there is no forum for that here and this is related. I wanted to try and run some games that would not work under wine nor virtualbox, so i shrunk my partition to make room for XP and it wouldn't install.

If you're just going to lecture me on the lack of need for windows please to not respond to this. If you have some sort of idea how to deal with it, all help is appreciated. The specific motherboard is:

Thanks!

I pass on my experience with an amdk6-350 where windows wouldn't install.

M$ acknowledged the problem, blamed amd, produced a patch, and put it on their site. In fact the issue was that the k6 executed some instruction faster, and threw some silly M$ timing loop. But the patch was for windows to run - catch 22.

I slowed the cpu frequency as far as possible, installed w98 as it was then, patched it, and then sped up. Try it.

Can that be done from the BIOS? I've never had to slow it down before...

Yeah, bus speeds stuff. I hope it helps.

If its a SATA Hardrive you need to change a few things in bios

Go to Advanced/Onboard Devices

-Onchip P-ATA [Enabled]
-Onchip S-ATA [Enabled]
-SATA Mode Select [AHCI Mode]
-Change AHCI for Linux [Disabled]

And use pci=nomsi for linux setup and bootloader

I went to the bios and selected bus frequency and multipliers. Instead of 100mhz bus speed and multiplier of 3.5 I set a 50 mhz bus speed and a multiplier of 2 or the likes.

All my settings are like that already. And I do use the pci=nomsi command to boot Linux, but you cant exactly do that in Windows :)

As for bus speeds, I took mine down from 200mhz to 100mhz and it returned a bios checksum error, did I do something wrong?

Thanks for the help so far.

Those were the settings I used when I had windows vista installed. However I noticed you are trying to install XP so you will need to load the SATA drivers during setup. If you have a floppy drive or can come across one then that will make life easier. Your xp install is not detecting your SATA drive though? I have the exact same board and up until a few weeks ago was dual booting both vista and arch with no problems.

So Vista might be a better idea? Its not a system I'm familiar with but my computer is obviously capable of handling it..

Vista and windows 7 will have the SATA drivers needed for the install. You also will have less to worry about as far as drivers are concerned. However I would not reccomend Vista ;) Especially if you want to use it for gaming. Xp would be a better choice!

Well its true, Vista did read my drive and partitions correctly, but even after I had it format my empty 400gb partition to NTFS, it said there wasn't a proper location for the Windows install. I'm going to try and see if i can find anything that might tell me what to do. I hope its not just saying that cause it has to share with Linux.

Looking at this link, (a vista install howto guide), It seems I did everything ok, but it has no mention of formatting to ntfs, and does not show what type the partition is in his screenshots. Is it better to just delete it and make the partition totally empty space, then let Vista figure it out? (can it?)

When dual booting always install Windows before Linux. Micro$oft has only made things more agonizing with the release of Vista and Windows 7. Xp with the SATA drivers would be the best bet for what you are planning on using the system for. On the same hardware @idle vista averaged 1200/mb of ram which leaves very little for gaming. Xp used 300/mb of ram @idle on a fresh system ;).

As far as formatting setup 2 partitions one for windows and a spare fat32/ntfs partition that you can use for the linux install later!

Note:For better performance Load Optimized Settings in Bios and reconfigure the settings quoted below.

I'm not exactly sure how to set it up to use the drivers on Xp. Anyone know where i could find a link to the needed SATA drivers? Are these general Sata drivers or do i need the actual one for my motherboard...

Thanks!

They should be on the disc you got with your motherboard or use the link below.You can always use your hardrive. If you format 2 partitions you can put the drivers on the second partition and setup windows on the first.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/nforce_...nxp_18.11.html

I'll have to look around, cant remember getting a CD. I do have another drive, but its IDE not sata.

I edited my last post to include the link

Well if i remember correctly it lets you use USB devices for the drivers. My problem is im still not sure which drivers are needed. And I didn't get a CD with my motherboard. I mean is it just the .exe driver from the nvidia site under geforce 8200?

Apologies, didnt see the link till now. Downloading..

Make sure you extract the contents of the .exe file. If I remember right you can use wine.

Well XP is installed now, but its practically useless. I installed the driver inside the system and it said it had an ethernet controller driver but the "add hardware" wizard still says there is no driver, so i cant get on the internet with it whatsoever. And given its a built in ethernet I'm not sure where to look for the driver as none was listed on the nvidia site.

Any ideas?

Network driver

http://gamerzredirect.com/downloads/marvell.zip

Audio Driver

http://gamerzredirect.com/downloads/WDM_R245.zip

Nvidia Driver

http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_197.45_whql.html


**********Install the nforce drivers from the link earlier for everything else***********