Why does something that worked fine break without any apparent reason?

[AlexV]

I like Vista...kill me for that, OK?I hate what Vista does to my computer...so what`s with the love&hate relationship, you`re wondering(probably not, but I`d really appreciate some input into this, as it has left me quite baffled):

Basically, everything works great EXCEPT, the video card(s)!I`m using dual x1900xts that have worked under any immaginable WindowsXP combinations, from unpatched to SP2 and X64...but under Vista they generally refuse to run, giving me a blank screen upon bootup. So I take one out, thinking that it`s due to Beta drivers from ATi etc. Same behaviour. I switch them around, and switch even the PCI-E slot. Same behaviour. I disable Secondary, and it boots into Windows even with both of them in the system, but it gives a code 12 error(this device could not find enough resources bla bla) for the card seated in the main slot(it`s the same with both cards, or with one card).

You can immagine that I wasn`t really enjoying my experience, right?SO, what do I do as a trained computer user?I disable PCI Express Root Port-27D0(This is Windows talk for the second PCI-E slot, AFAIU) and what do you know...it works!What`s even stranger, after booting into Vista with it disabled, i can reenable it and if the second card is in it gets detected and works fine...but Heaven forbid i forget to disable it before a reboot, as it`ll screw things up. And if Secondary is enabled it doesn`t work at all(blank screen)!

So WTF am I to do?I`m using an ASRock XFire-eSATA2(945PL based) mobo...I`m thinking that there must be some kind of conflict/resource sharing going on when the second slot is enabled, that fooks things up, but is there any way to fix it?Why did it work fine under all XP variants, and it was broken under all Vistas that I tried(RC1,RC2 and now final)?

 

[ANova]

You're hardly the only one experiencing this problem and there are an equal number of problems for nvidia hardware. As far as I'm concerned Vista is the next windows ME. I ran into 10 bugs (some of them major) in the first 2 days of running it.

 

[Martin Eddy]

The same sort of things happened when going from 98 to xp. It's still early days yet for Vista, but this surely would have come up in the HUGE public beta. Vista shouldn't be released with problems like this. I'm going to wait at least 12 months before I consider upgrading.

 

[AlexV]

Well, I dunno, it seems to me that the issue is not as much with the vid-cards as much as it is with the mobo...even though that is odd as it`s not a new mobo, it`s not an exotic one...it`s friggin` made by Intel, you can`t get more mainstream then that. May it have something to do that for the second PCI-E slot the PCI-E lanes come from the southbridge?

 

[aaaaa00]

New GPU driver teething problems -- the video driver model in Vista is different than XP.

Just wait a while, and the video drivers will get stabilized and the features will start working.

 

[AlexV]

Fixed...it was the mobo after all!I contacted ASRock and as the very nice guys they are(I wasn`t expecting that, really) and in a few hours after actually exchanging info with them they`ve sent me a beta bios that fixed the issue. Thank you very much, now on to some digging through Vista

 

[Dooby]

As soon as I read your inital post, and I saw the word "Asrock" I would have posted that there was where your problem lay. For the most part a motherboard is a motherboard, but for such an important part of the computer I would never go with an OEM company like Asrock.

I remember when they first came on the market, and they were selling similar spec'd boards to Abit but the price difference was huge (£90ish vs. £30). Their POS guys were saying that "quality was not affected" etc, but out of the first batch of 100 we had, 58 of them came back. BIOS faults, drivers wouldnt work (for no apparent reason), capacitors fell off

At the time, support was next to non-existant too. Im glad they seem to have sorted that. Glad you got your problem fixed.

 

[AlexV]

Well, it`s been an ok mobo overall, and as I said, they were a lot faster then I expected in fixing this particular issue. OTOH, I`ve always thought of this mobo as a temporary solution, but the RD600 got delay after delay, Bearlake is still a bit off, and I`m not yet getting 8800s for SLi so I`m not yet attracted by nVs solutions. I`ve ordered an RD600, but at the rate things are going, I`ll probably get it in summer, if I`m lucky

 

[nightemaster]

Hi, Morgoth the Dark Enemy. I was wondering if you still have that bios file. I have the exact same motherboard and I'm having the same problem. Thanks!

 

[AlexV]

Yup, I do. I could send it to you, but are you familiar with the procedures involved with flashing your Bios from Dos?As it`s provided as is, only the bios file, you`ll have to do the dirty work yourself.

You could try asking AsRock as well, or waiting for an official release alongside Vista(I suspect they`ll release the bios file or maybe a newer one as the one I have is from somewhere in 2006), which would be nicely packaged with a windows hassle free installer.

But if you`ve done the thing before, and don`t want to wait/ask etc. I`ll gladly send it to you.

 

[nightemaster]

Hi, thanks. I'll probably figure out how to flash it myself. Can you send it to my e-mail? I made my e-mail public in my profile for now. If you also have some bootdisk/etc utilities that you recommend, it would be helpful. Thanks!

 

[AlexV]

PM me your email, can`t seem to find it in your profile data.

 

[nightemaster]

Hmm i can't PM you for some reason. Anyways, my e-mail is my username @gmail.com
Thx