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Crazy J came over my house last night and set up my new computer. This thing is so fast, I find myself shocked and awed. Keanu Reeves level awe: "whoa!" Anyway, the thing runs like a dream and special thanks goes to sb who sold me the parts and helped me pick out a kickass video card. Yep. The card, Geforce 4 4800se," arrived same day as the computer, so everything is a go. Only problem J and I had was that Windows XP Pro would not install? We could'nt figure out what the problem was. We did not format my hard drive first because Win XP does that during the install, but we disconnect everything and even tried a clean harddrive he brought with him to be sure that it was in fact not a conflict with my HD. No apparent motherboard or RAM problems. In fact the install process did not even get to the point where it would detect my current HD. We tried it with my OLD vid card too just be sure it was'nt the 4800 screwing things up. But, bare bones, nothing seemed to allow win xp to install. We even tried two different install cds that he had with him. Any suggestions to get win xp on board, please let me know. For now, I've got a new computer that runs superbly, so if this is the worst of my trouble, I'm certainly not complaining.

Griffy.

What's the full Spec on that new PC Griff??

Hope you get the XP thing sorted ASAP!!

I am hoping to start getting parts together for a new PC so that i can get more games to run on the higher spec settings!!

For example i just got IL2 and my Pc is under spec on the graphics card front!!! It runs but have to keep the visuals down to low level for it to go smoothly otherwise my Pc makes like a Commodore 64 playing F15 Stike Eagle!!!!

I will probably be getting most of my parts(or at least the Processor) sent from the states as the price of Pc components over here is Sky high! just check out my Advice! post

Nemisis

I think you should mail order everything via the states. Go to Priceshopper.com or some such and get everything cheap as possible.

CURRENT SPECS:

KR7A-RAID Mother board with 512 MB DDR RAM
GeForce 4800SE 128 DDR RAM Graphics Card by nVidia, MSI
SB LIVE! sound card
and my peripherals of course.

Nemisis:

http://www.accupc.com/ I got the graphics card from these people. THey are fast and would appear to be cheap. You may want to check them out.

Grif, can you lay out in detail what steps you perform to try to install XP? I'd be glad to work through it with you when I get home this afternoon. Drop me a message and I can even call on the phone if need be. I've installed XP several times in several different ways and not had major problems i couldn't overcome.

Gee Gator, I wish I could, but we tried so many different things, that I cannot remember now what we did. I can say that at one point we removed all cards, sound, nic, a drive, zip drive, leaving only one cd rom, video card, and a CLEAN hard drive running and it still did'nt work. We even swapped the vid card out to make sure that it was'nt the new 4800 acting up. I wish you could help me later today too, and thanks for offering, but unfortunately, that is an impossibility right now. Again thanks for offering though.

Griffy.

PS. Suggestions for fixing this trivial, and I do mean trivial problem are of course still welcome on this thread.

do you still have the XP cd?

can you put it in and try the upgrade/install and note what happens? that will give us a clue to try and help.

Grif,

I can help you as well with the WinXP Pro install, I have installed WinXP many many times. I am curious as to how you are trying to install WinXP.

Are you booting from CD ROM(Must set it up in the BIOS first), with the WinXP Pro CD in the CD drive, and then booting up? As long as you have all the IDE cables and the HD plugged in, and the jumpers on the HD set correctly, are able to boot from CD ROM, WinXP should install easily.

The first thing WinXP should ask you is what file system you want to Partition the drive in. The only choice I believe with WinXP 2002 should be NTFS. Select the NTFS option and it should install everything in a matter of 30-45 minutes or so. Also, what type of IDE cables are you trying to use? You should be using ATA/100 IDE cables, they are much thinner cables and have a "fine" look to it. The older cables have a "thicker" look to them. In the MB package I sent you, there was a package of cables, one is a floppy cable and one is an ATA/100 cable. Make sure that is the cable you are using. Also, make sure you are not plugging the IDE cables into the RAID controller on the MB (Yellow colored).

yes, we set the bios first and did all that stuff to the best of my knowledge. He's doing some research on the problem. I'll have to check back with him on the cable issue.