[digikiwi]

Hi all,

I recently reinstalled XP Pro on a desktop which was having an NTLDR detect issue - different story and likely not relevant.

The OS is installed on a SATA drive. When booting the machine would run a consistency check on the one IDE drive each time but not find any issues.

After updating on about 70 items from MS Update the computer started up normally. The next boot however resulted in a

BSOD: Machine exception error

0x0000009c
0x00000004
0x8054e5f0
0xb2000000
0x000070f0f


I am able to get into XP safe mode but when loading xp it gets to the Windows XP screen and the blue bar made of 3 squares runs through 16 times before coming to a halt. Sometimes it just goes to BSOD.


Having done some reading on this issue - it seems a hardware fault is indicated and I'm not sure I want to go through taking it all to bits and rebuilding the machine again.

BTW I'm runing a GA-K8NSC939 mobo with a AMD 3200+ CPU.


I have also tried running the XP Pro disk again for a repair or install but this resulted in a BSOD as above one of the times. The other times I didn't go through with reinstall deciding to try and isolate the problem further.


My main question really are

- if I can get into safe mode, could it be a driver issue rather than hardware?

- Is there any relatively simple tests to run for isolating the issue?

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Yes it could still be a driver issue, I know it`s time consuming
but I think the best option would be to format the HD & do a fresh
install of xp, below is a link to a comprehensive list of BSOD
error codes & possible fixes;
http://www.geekstogo...des-t43519.html

[phillpower2]

Yes it could still be a driver issue, I know it`s time consuming
but I think the best option would be to format the HD & do a fresh
install of xp, below is a link to a comprehensive list of BSOD
error codes & possible fixes;
http://www.geekstogo...des-t43519.html

[digikiwi]

Well, I've done a fresh install, onto the IDE Disk this time, and can boot into windows xp just fine. It's when I try to install the network driver (from the motherboard's support page and yes it's the right one) that I get back to Machine exception error BSOD.

Any clues anyone - is this likely to be a problem with the NIC or could it be elswhere in the hardware?

If it is the NIC I wonder if installing a 3rd party one in a PCI slot would mitigate. The likely answer is to try it, but I'd prefer to not have to go out buy something that'll be more toxic waste if it doesn't work out.

[phillpower2]

Sounds like the NIC or its drivers may be causing the problem.
Have you checked in the BIOS that the NIC is enabled or have you
tried installing the drivers for it in device manager.

[digikiwi]

Sorry, got sidetracked on other stuff.

I think the problem is very likely the NIC. I've tried the drivers from mobo support page (Gigabyte) and everything else installs but the Ethernet card.

Yes the OnBoard LAN Control is enabled in BIOS, and Device Manager consistently flags the NIC as not functioning properly.

I've just ordered another NIC and will throw that in a spare PCI slot. Is there a way to permanently turn off the inbuilt NIC on the motherboard.

I suspect that the OnBoard LAN Control in BIOS might do this. Can anyone confirm please?

Or would that mean that LAN is disabled regardless of card. OR, alternately would an external NIC with driver appropriately installed override XP's desire to install the broken onboard one?

[phillpower2]

Welcome back digikiwi
Yes make sure the onboard lan is disabled in BIOS to prevent any
possible conflicts, it may be the device that is faulty not the
driver.
Fitting the new Plug n Play card should be straight forward from
there.
Good luck

[digikiwi]

Just to complete this thread, I disabled the onboard LAN in BIOS, installed the 3rd Party NIC and all the troubles are gone. Thanks for the help.

[phillpower2]

Thank you for the update digikiwi, I am happy that your NIC
issue is now resolved and thank you for allowing me to assist you