# Save my computer from being thrown out the window!



## Pck21 (Mar 27, 2009)

Holy jeebus am I ticked off and frustrated. I'll keep this post PG, but I make no guarantees. Allow me to let you in to my world with a little back story and then the problem.

Basically, my parent's old Gateway 827GM was acting wonky so I decided to upgrade some of the components on their dime. I got a new Asus M3978-EM mobo, WD 320GB SATA hd, AMD 5000+ X2 black edition CPU, 4GBs of OCZ Reaper DDR2 ram, and a Corsair 650TX PSU. I put it all in this afternoon and everything went swimmingly. However, when I went to install XP (the original, pre-SP1 edition) I could only get to the "Windows is Setting Up..." and then I would get the BSOD. That was problem number 1.

To solve said problem, I got the genius idea of removing the CMOS battery (as there were no jumpers) and reset the CMOS. Now I can't get past the BIOS splash screen. 

Can anyone help me figure why I can't get past the splash screen and/or the Windows issue as well? I'm about to go mad here and I'm at my wit's end!


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## Sean89 (Mar 27, 2009)

dont think pre sp1 can recognize 4gigs of ram in xp


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## Pck21 (Mar 27, 2009)

Sean89 said:


> dont think pre sp1 can recognize 4gigs of ram in xp



I took out 1 stick so that only 2GBs was remaining but it's still doing it.


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## JTM (Mar 27, 2009)

This could be caused by driver support issues. But I'm leaning more towards XP having trouble installing on SATA. Most likely your BIOS didn't have SATA as the controller and when XP saw it, it BSOD. As for the MOBO not being able to get into BIOS I'm not sure. Removing the CMOS battery wouldn't cause damage, it would just reset BIOS.


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## Pck21 (Mar 27, 2009)

JTM said:


> This could be caused by driver support issues. But I'm leaning more towards XP having trouble installing on SATA. Most likely your BIOS didn't have SATA as the controller and when XP saw it, it BSOD. As for the MOBO not being able to get into BIOS I'm not sure. Removing the CMOS battery wouldn't cause damage, it would just reset BIOS.



I've heard the same things about driver issues too. Someone mentioned something about "slipstreaming" SP2 in with my CD install but I don't know how to do that. I tried the Windows 7 beta cd and it came up with some error that it couldn't read a ".wim" file or something. I should have just tried linux...sigh...

I didn't think taking out the battery would do damage either. This battery is seated vertically though...maybe I put it in backwards? If I flip it around, will I do damage to it if it was in the right way to begin with? I'm this close to just giving up on technology altogether...


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## JTM (Mar 27, 2009)

Just put it in the way it was in. It should be fairly straight forward, I even think it should boot without the CMOS battery. Your priority should be to get your mobo to boot into BIOS. I would recommend changing your hdd controller to sata. That may take away your issue of installing XP. Even further you could possibly find a BIOS revision of your board. 

So take the battery out and make sure you put it in the right way. Let me know what happens next.


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## Pck21 (Mar 27, 2009)

JTM said:


> Just put it in the way it was in. It should be fairly straight forward, I even think it should boot without the CMOS battery. Your priority should be to get your mobo to boot into BIOS. I would recommend changing your hdd controller to sata. That may take away your issue of installing XP. Even further you could possibly find a BIOS revision of your board.
> 
> So take the battery out and make sure you put it in the right way. Let me know what happens next.



Well I triple checked to make sure the battery was in the correct way and it definitely is because it won't fit any other way. I'll try to boot it without the battery and see what it does, but I just don't want to do damage to the board in any way. My only hard drive is a SATA, but what do you mean by hdd controller? I miraculously updated my BIOS (when I was able to get into BIOS in the first place) by using the CD that the mobo came with. I used EZ Flash 2 and it allowed me to update the BIOS using the CD, which seemed to work great.

I turned it on again this morning and it's still hanging at the BIOS splash screen that says "ASUS." It used to go to a black screen first with wording related to "Express Gate" but now it doesn't even show that. I tried hitting delete and tab to go into BIOS or just another screen with 2 different keyboards and still nothing. Maybe the mobo is actually bad? 

Thank you for all your help by the way. Honestly, I'm totally frustrated over here but I feel better knowing that I have someone who I can bounce ideas off of. No one around me has a clue what to do lol.


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## JTM (Mar 27, 2009)

Pck21 said:


> Well I triple checked to make sure the battery was in the correct way and it definitely is because it won't fit any other way. I'll try to boot it without the battery and see what it does, but I just don't want to do damage to the board in any way. My only hard drive is a SATA, but what do you mean by hdd controller? I miraculously updated my BIOS (when I was able to get into BIOS in the first place) by using the CD that the mobo came with. I used EZ Flash 2 and it allowed me to update the BIOS using the CD, which seemed to work great.
> 
> I turned it on again this morning and it's still hanging at the BIOS splash screen that says "ASUS." It used to go to a black screen first with wording related to "Express Gate" but now it doesn't even show that. I tried hitting delete and tab to go into BIOS or just another screen with 2 different keyboards and still nothing. Maybe the mobo is actually bad?
> 
> Thank you for all your help by the way. Honestly, I'm totally frustrated over here but I feel better knowing that I have someone who I can bounce ideas off of. No one around me has a clue what to do lol.



I don't think that taking the battery out would make any difference. The CMOS battery simply stores your BIOS settings like time, configuration, etc. When a CMOS battery dies you'll find yourself having to keep re-entering settings.

I would see if you can flash the BIOS using the disc that they gave you. See if it will boot the disc, or any disc. I'm not to sure why it is locking up like that. Just try to flash the BIOS.

Another thing is, are there any beeps or noises being made during this? Also is all the hardware seated properly?


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## Twist86 (Mar 27, 2009)

If its ANYTHING like the Gigabytes "auto update" feature you might have crashed your board updating the BIOS.
Always manually update the BIOS aka burn to disc then update it.


I would RMA the board...seems like it is the issue. Also make sure your HDD is in SATA1 some motherboards have funky layouts which can screw you over. 

Happened to me on my Vista x64 Install.


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## Bodaggit23 (Mar 27, 2009)

Most times after you reset the CMOS, you have to get into the BIOS
and Load Optimized Defaults, then restart.

Can you get into the BIOS by pressing DELETE when it boots?


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## JTM (Mar 27, 2009)

Bodaggit23 said:


> Most times after you reset the CMOS, you have to get into the BIOS
> and Load Optimized Defaults, then restart.
> 
> Can you get into the BIOS by pressing DELETE when it boots?



No, he said he couldn't. It just locks up.


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## Bodaggit23 (Mar 27, 2009)

JTM said:


> No, he said he couldn't. It just locks up.


He never actually stated if he tried or not.

He only said he could not get past the splash screen, and that's where
the options are to load into BIOS or change Boot Device.


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## JTM (Mar 27, 2009)

Bodaggit23 said:


> He never actually stated if he tried or not.
> 
> He only said he could not get past the splash screen, and that's where
> the options are to load into BIOS or change Boot Device.



Actually you are wrong  

"I turned it on again this morning and it's still hanging at the BIOS splash screen that says "ASUS." *It used to go to a black screen first with wording related to "Express Gate" but now it doesn't even show that. I tried hitting delete and tab to go into BIOS or just another screen with 2 different keyboards and still nothing*. Maybe the mobo is actually bad?"


As you can see he was able to get into BIOS before he removed the CMOS battery. Now he can't get into BIOS.


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## Bodaggit23 (Mar 27, 2009)

Well cr@p. I missed that post.

Apologies...


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## JTM (Mar 27, 2009)

Bodaggit23 said:


> Well cr@p. I missed that post.
> 
> Apologies...



No problem


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## Pck21 (Mar 27, 2009)

JTM said:


> I don't think that taking the battery out would make any difference. The CMOS battery simply stores your BIOS settings like time, configuration, etc. When a CMOS battery dies you'll find yourself having to keep re-entering settings.
> 
> I would see if you can flash the BIOS using the disc that they gave you. See if it will boot the disc, or any disc. I'm not to sure why it is locking up like that. Just try to flash the BIOS.
> 
> Another thing is, are there any beeps or noises being made during this? Also is all the hardware seated properly?



I tried using the disc but it still doesn't go past the BIOS splash screen.  I don't think there's any way I ca flash the BIOS without actually getting into the BIOS unfortunately. I think the mobo might be dead.



Twist86 said:


> If its ANYTHING like the Gigabytes "auto update" feature you might have crashed your board updating the BIOS.
> Always manually update the BIOS aka burn to disc then update it.
> 
> 
> ...



I think I will have to RMA the board then, which is a pain. I'll also make sure that my SATA drive is in SATA1 as well once I get the new board. Man this has been a headache from the get-go...

Thanks for all of your help everyone, honestly. I guess I'm going to RMA the board back to newegg and get a new one. I'll update what happens when I get the new one and try to slipstream a copy of Windows XP SP2. Thanks again! :good:


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## bomberboysk (Mar 27, 2009)

Wow.. dude you seem to be having some horrible luck from just wanting to upgrade a power supply Just got a question, you have tried leaving out the battery for ~30min with the power supply unplugged? Or do you think possibly your power supply might be bad and fried the first mobo, id rma that while you rma the mobo...


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## JTM (Mar 28, 2009)

bomberboysk said:


> Wow.. dude you seem to be having some horrible luck from just wanting to upgrade a power supply Just got a question, you have tried leaving out the battery for ~30min with the power supply unplugged? Or do you think possibly your power supply might be bad and fried the first mobo, id rma that while you rma the mobo...



Even if the battery was dead or taken out it should still boot fine. The only reason I could see taking out the CMOS battery would be if he messed up settings, but he didn't.


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## Pck21 (Mar 28, 2009)

JTM said:


> Even if the battery was dead or taken out it should still boot fine. The only reason I could see taking out the CMOS battery would be if he messed up settings, but he didn't.



Yep, the only thing I changed in the BIOS settings was the time. It was like 2 hours off but that was it. No voltage or CPU changes or anything like that. I'm going to take out the battery for like 3 hours and see what that does.


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## Pck21 (Mar 31, 2009)

Just an update to the situation: I tried taking out the battery, ram, CPU, and unplugging everything from the computer (including power) and just let it sit there for 2 hours. I replaced everything, turned it on, and still got the same screen. So I just sent back the motherboard and should be receiving a new one soon. Hope that solves it...


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## JTM (Apr 1, 2009)

Pck21 said:


> Just an update to the situation: I tried taking out the battery, ram, CPU, and unplugging everything from the computer (including power) and just let it sit there for 2 hours. I replaced everything, turned it on, and still got the same screen. So I just sent back the motherboard and should be receiving a new one soon. Hope that solves it...



Sounds good, let us know how it goes!


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## Pck21 (Apr 8, 2009)

So an update to my situation...

I got the new motherboard in yesterday and installed it last night. I created a slipstream of Microsoft XP Home SP2 with my original copy and...drum roll please...everything went great! It turns out that the original motherboard was the problem.

So here's the deal though. I have an ASUS 9800GT GPU that I wanted to install on it BUT the PCIe x16 is a little too close to the PCI slot below it, meaning that I can't fully install the card because it's blocked. I was wondering if I could take off the cooler and replace it with a Zalman third party cooler that was slimmer so that it would fit? Would that work? Is there a way to fix this issue? Thanks everyone!


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## JTM (Apr 8, 2009)

Pck21 said:


> So an update to my situation...
> 
> I got the new motherboard in yesterday and installed it last night. I created a slipstream of Microsoft XP Home SP2 with my original copy and...drum roll please...everything went great! It turns out that the original motherboard was the problem.
> 
> So here's the deal though. I have an ASUS 9800GT GPU that I wanted to install on it BUT the PCIe x16 is a little too close to the PCI slot below it, meaning that I can't fully install the card because it's blocked. I was wondering if I could take off the cooler and replace it with a Zalman third party cooler that was slimmer so that it would fit? Would that work? Is there a way to fix this issue? Thanks everyone!



Yeah you should be able to do the aftermarket cooler, just be careful removing and installing it. You might be able to mod the card case possibly to fit?


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## Pck21 (Apr 8, 2009)

JTM said:


> Yeah you should be able to do the aftermarket cooler, just be careful removing and installing it. You might be able to mod the card case possibly to fit?



Well it's not the case so much as it is poor design of the board...again lol. Basically the card can't sit properly because the PCI slot below it is too close and keeps it from going in the PCIe x16 slot all the way. I'm thinking of getting an aftermarket cooler but I can't find any low profile ones that will fit the card. So far I found the Zalman VF2000 LED on their website but I can't find a way to buy it haha. It just never ends with this thing I swear...


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## JTM (Apr 8, 2009)

Pck21 said:


> Well it's not the case so much as it is poor design of the board...again lol. Basically the card can't sit properly because the PCI slot below it is too close and keeps it from going in the PCIe x16 slot all the way. I'm thinking of getting an aftermarket cooler but I can't find any low profile ones that will fit the card. So far I found the Zalman VF2000 LED on their website but I can't find a way to buy it haha. It just never ends with this thing I swear...



haha proprietary cases, boards, everything!


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## bomberboysk (Apr 8, 2009)

Is it the 9800gt singleslot or dual slot cooler? Could you take some pics of what its hitting perhaps?


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## Pck21 (Apr 8, 2009)

bomberboysk said:


> Is it the 9800gt singleslot or dual slot cooler? Could you take some pics of what its hitting perhaps?



It's a dual slot cooler. It's this one here:






I will definitely take pics of it when I get home. Here's a pic of the board for reference:






If you can see where the blue PCIe x16 slot is in that pic, the card is hitting the white PCI slot just below it. Hopefully that makes sense...? lol! If not, I'll post pics of my actual board and card. Thanks for the replies!


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## bomberboysk (Apr 8, 2009)

Pck21 said:


> It's a dual slot cooler. It's this one here:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Oh, then that makes sense. Maybe if you dont find a cooler that could fit on the card you could to something like cut the plastic away from where its hitting, then cover it up withsome thin plastic painted black and gued there with some ca glue?


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## Pck21 (Apr 8, 2009)

bomberboysk said:


> Oh, then that makes sense. Maybe if you dont find a cooler that could fit on the card you could to something like cut the plastic away from where its hitting, then cover it up withsome thin plastic painted black and gued there with some ca glue?



That's not a bad idea! Could I, theoretically, just remove the plastic covering from the card and leave the fan and heatsink on there? Would that mess up the card or anything? I'll see what I can do about cutting or shaving away the plastic part when I have like 3 or 4 hours to spare since I have no idea what I'm doing lol. Thanks!


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## Bodaggit23 (Apr 8, 2009)

Well, the shroud is made to take air in and force it over the rest of the board,
and out the back, so the fan would not be as effective, so you'd have to make
sure you have good airflow, and watch your GPU temps closely.

Maybe you could just unseat the shroud a bit, just enough to clear the slot?


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## bomberboysk (Apr 9, 2009)

Pck21 said:


> That's not a bad idea! Could I, theoretically, just remove the plastic covering from the card and leave the fan and heatsink on there? Would that mess up the card or anything? I'll see what I can do about cutting or shaving away the plastic part when I have like 3 or 4 hours to spare since I have no idea what I'm doing lol. Thanks!



Well, i would take a dremel just to the part where it is hitting, then using something thinner to cover it up and maintain as much airflow as you can, but it theoretically wouldnt make you loose too much airflow as long as you can seal the "hole" decently


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## Zatharus (Apr 9, 2009)

Woah...  Pck21, are you saying that the PCI slot next to the PCIe slot is too high to allow the graphics card to seat all the way in to the slot??

All the slots should be the same height.  That card will cover the adjacent PCI slot - that's a given.  But, it should still fit all the way down into the PCIe slot.  Are you sure it's not hitting the capacitor between the two PCI slots?


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## Pck21 (Apr 9, 2009)

Zatharus said:


> Woah...  Pck21, are you saying that the PCI slot next to the PCIe slot is too high to allow the graphics card to seat all the way in to the slot??
> 
> All the slots should be the same height.  That card will cover the adjacent PCI slot - that's a given.  But, it should still fit all the way down into the PCIe slot.  Are you sure it's not hitting the capacitor between the two PCI slots?



Yep, I'm pretty sure the PCI slot is actually sitting higher than the PCIe slot, which I thought was weird too. I know first hand that I would lose a PCI slot due to the dual slot of the cards (I'm losing 2 PCI slots in the build in my sig lol) but I never thought it could be a capacitor. For the now I put in an old 7600GT in the PCIe slot and sits just fine. 

I might try the dremel idea and go from there. I'm also looking at just replacing the stock cooler with a third party cooler since the stock fan is loud as heck. The problem is most of the fans don't fit my model, or if they do, they are just as big as the stock cooler.


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## Zatharus (Apr 9, 2009)

Pck21 said:


> Yep, I'm pretty sure the PCI slot is actually sitting higher than the PCIe slot, which I thought was weird too. I know first hand that I would lose a PCI slot due to the dual slot of the cards (I'm losing 2 PCI slots in the build in my sig lol) but I never thought it could be a capacitor. For the now I put in an old 7600GT in the PCIe slot and sits just fine.
> 
> I might try the dremel idea and go from there. I'm also looking at just replacing the stock cooler with a third party cooler since the stock fan is loud as heck. The problem is most of the fans don't fit my model, or if they do, they are just as big as the stock cooler.



That is unusual.  I will have to do some investigating into that.  If you can pull the board and look along the top profile of the slots or just take a piece of paper/a ruler and slide it along them, I bet you will see that the capacitor squatting in the middle is what is causing your problem.  I am surprised still that anything would be sticking up that high to cause this.  We are only talking a millimeter or two, but still... 

You can get some low-profile coolers for that card.  That would be a better option than just modifying the casing (but that could get you by for now).  As some have mentioned already, that casing is designed to help the air flow around the card's heatsink.


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## Pck21 (Apr 9, 2009)

Zatharus said:


> That is unusual.  I will have to do some investigating into that.  If you can pull the board and look along the top profile of the slots or just take a piece of paper/a ruler and slide it along them, I bet you will see that the capacitor squatting in the middle is what is causing your problem.  I am surprised still that anything would be sticking up that high to cause this.  We are only talking a millimeter or two, but still...
> 
> You can get some low-profile coolers for that card.  That would be a better option than just modifying the casing (but that could get you by for now).  As some have mentioned already, that casing is designed to help the air flow around the card's heatsink.



Yea, the more I look at the board, the more I think that the capacitor in the middle is being the punk here lol. The PCI slot still sticks up a bit more than I'm used to, but I'm wondering why ASUS, in their infinite wisdom, decided to place a capacitor there? That's just dumb IMHO.

Do you have any recommendations for low profile coolers? I can't seem to find a single one that would work anywhere! When I do find one, they are no longer available, or they haven't been released yet. 

EDIT: Actually I'm looking at the Thermaltake DuOrb right now. Would that be low profile enough to work for me?

Thanks for the help and replies everyone!


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## Zatharus (Apr 9, 2009)

Pck21 said:


> Yea, the more I look at the board, the more I think that the capacitor in the middle is being the punk here lol. The PCI slot still sticks up a bit more than I'm used to, but I'm wondering why ASUS, in their infinite wisdom, decided to place a capacitor there? That's just dumb IMHO.
> 
> Do you have any recommendations for low profile coolers? I can't seem to find a single one that would work anywhere! When I do find one, they are no longer available, or they haven't been released yet.
> 
> ...



Heh heh...very good question.  I've seen some poor designs before.  I forget what model of laptop it was, but the board designer/manufacturer put raised ICs below the SDRAM sockets (that lay parallel with the board) and you could not use even a single-sided stick of RAM in the lower expansion slot.  Genious... 

That DuOrb would be perfect for you.  It won't sit nearly as low as the stock cooler casing.


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## Bob692006 (Apr 10, 2009)

Just thought I'd throw this out there, a little late I know, but the original problem I believe with the install was that you were trying to install Windows XP so SP on a SATA HDD. Until SP 2 (I think) Windows XP did not come with SATA support, you have to put the SATA driver on a floppy and hit F6 to install a 3rd party HDD driver when doing the OS install.


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## Zatharus (Apr 10, 2009)

Bob692006 said:


> Just thought I'd throw this out there, a little late I know, but the original problem I believe with the install was that you were trying to install Windows XP so SP on a SATA HDD. Until SP 2 (I think) Windows XP did not come with SATA support, you have to put the SATA driver on a floppy and hit F6 to install a 3rd party HDD driver when doing the OS install.




Yes, that was fixed by post #22.  He took care of the issue with an updated (SP2 slipstreamed in) install disk.  Thank you though.


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## Bob692006 (Apr 10, 2009)

I know he indirectly fixed it by slipstreaming SP2 but wanted to point out what the original issue was.


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## Pck21 (Apr 11, 2009)

Bob692006 said:


> Just thought I'd throw this out there, a little late I know, but the original problem I believe with the install was that you were trying to install Windows XP so SP on a SATA HDD. Until SP 2 (I think) Windows XP did not come with SATA support, you have to put the SATA driver on a floppy and hit F6 to install a 3rd party HDD driver when doing the OS install.





Bob692006 said:


> I know he indirectly fixed it by slipstreaming SP2 but wanted to point out what the original issue was.



Thanks for the info Bob! I actually didn't really understand why it wasn't working so I appreciate the help. This way I know for next time! 

Also, I have another update about the video card situation. I finally got it to seat properly and tightly...after many tries. It was actually a dumb problem that I wouldn't have guessed would happen. Turns out the machine that made my board left the SMALLEST piece of plastic bubbled or sticking out inside the damn PCIe slot! I took some small needle nose pliers and plucked it out and it's now working perfectly! The reason I looked in there at all was because I was investigating the capacitor and the PCI slot below it to see which one it was hitting. I noticed that the card had a good inch of space from both pieces and THEN noticed the small plastic part. What a relief!

Thanks for everyone's help...seriously. I couldn't have done it without you guys! :good:


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## Zatharus (Apr 11, 2009)

Great news!  I'm glad to know it was something simple. 




Bob692006 said:


> I know he indirectly fixed it by slipstreaming SP2 but wanted to point out what the original issue was.



Ah!  Good man. :good:


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## JTM (Apr 11, 2009)

Pck21 said:


> Thanks for the info Bob! I actually didn't really understand why it wasn't working so I appreciate the help. This way I know for next time!
> 
> Also, I have another update about the video card situation. I finally got it to seat properly and tightly...after many tries. It was actually a dumb problem that I wouldn't have guessed would happen. Turns out the machine that made my board left the SMALLEST piece of plastic bubbled or sticking out inside the damn PCIe slot! I took some small needle nose pliers and plucked it out and it's now working perfectly! The reason I looked in there at all was because I was investigating the capacitor and the PCI slot below it to see which one it was hitting. I noticed that the card had a good inch of space from both pieces and THEN noticed the small plastic part. What a relief!
> 
> Thanks for everyone's help...seriously. I couldn't have done it without you guys! :good:



Good to see that you found the problem and fixed it!


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