Swapping mobo and/or HD suggestions......

[Dooin' it]

Long story short (sort of).........

K7S5A Pro.......built for a buddy, system's great but Cmos keeps losing its way. Tried 3 different batteries, no joy. He's a good buddy so gonna either give him a new board (ECS K7VTA3) or give him another barebones I have & put his stuff in it.

Question........First, any suggestions on the cmos stuff?? (problem is it keeps resetting the cpu/memory speed to 100/100 instead of 133/133). I could teach him how to reset this himself in setup whenever it happens but it's not his fault & I wouldn't do that to a buddy.

........Second, if I do the swap (either new mobo or box) can I salvage his old info on the HD?? I've done a mobo swap b4 & it was a royal PITA. Drivers mix, fight, kick, punch throw screwdrivers etc. Any suggestions sure would help. He's running Windows ME. T..I...A (as usual)

[John Prophet]

ahhhh. I think I may know whats up with that cmos problem

check your power supply and see what it is rated aa far as the "5v sb"..the 5v "standby" voltage.

If its 1a it might be a little dicey especially on that board...I had the same issue....so I put on a psu that had 2a of 5v sb and its fine now.

Also if it is set to allow keyboard power-on I would set it to disable keyboard power-on.

[Dooin' it]

Well, John, you still never cease to amaze me at how fast you've gotten back to reply to any problems I've thrown out here, but...........alas.........this one is a no joy.

I was soooo hopin' you were dead-on, but the 5vsb is =2A (Powertek 450W P4 PSU) and the keyboard power-on is disabled. I really wish this sucker just worked, but I have a feeling it's just something in the board that causes the cmos to reset.

Any other suggestions??

And/or any advice on swapping out the mobo & dealing with the old drivers vs. new drivers once it's done so I don't ***accidentally*** kick the dog, throw wrenches & screwdrivers & light something on fire that'll cost me later?? LOL!!

[John Prophet]

swapping out mobo..with windows xp...when you get the new one in..go straight to the bios and do whatever needs to be done there..then dont even try to boot into windows cuz itll blue screen....instead boot to the cd and do a "repair" install....just act like you are doing a regular install and it'll search for and find your current install then it'll have an option to "repair" that install....that USUALLY works.

If its w98se or me etc you boot into safe mode, run "regedit" and delete the "hkey local machine/enum" folder and then reboot and it'll start redetecting all the hardware etc

[Dooin' it]

Ahhhhhhh......you are a saint, John!! Thanks a million!!

One more question about deleting the registry hkey.......Will that also ditch the mobo drivers?? I think I could deal with the hardware/periph drivers, but all the mobo driver stuff (forgive my ignorance but I'll ramble what I think I mean)........

IDE controller
PCI stuff
Southbridge stuff
Northbridge stuff
USB controller, etc. etc.....

(basically all the junk that gets the mobo playing nicely with the O/S & HDD)

As best I can tell by looking on this computer (I'm not at home right now) it looks like it would 'cuz I see everything from BIOS all the way down to USB folders under that ENUM directory. That way I can just insert the mobo CD-rom to install all that stuff, then use the individual CD's for modem install, video card, sound card etc. etc. etc..........(thanks again & again, & again)

[John Prophet]

So its w98se or ME etc??

I have never had problems with drivers after I deleted the enum folder....one option might be to delete or uninstall stuff like drivers if possible..... BEFORE taking out the old motherboard..then take it out and then do the enum trick

[Dooin' it]

Yes, WinME. I was thinking the same thing. (remove the easy drivers b4 removing HD). Actually, since I'll be using the same internal periphs (cards) about the only thing I'm really worried about *is* the mobo stuff. All else will stay the same........actually......I'm lying. One *might* change.

If I put his stuff in the barebones, I'll be using the onboard video as it's pretty good & the only card I'll be putting in is the same modem card. Once that's in, the rest should be *auto-detect*, then once Windows ME doesn't find everything (I'm assuming since the box is newer than the O/S) I'll throw the mobo CD in & let it start installing stuff from there to get all the mobo hosts, bridges, controllers working properly.

Ahhhhh......it's coming together in my head (I think). But what's that they say about the best laid plans of mice & men???? ha ha ha ha!!!

[Dooin' it]

Well, I gave it an honest effort. New mobo's in & looking good. (Although the K7S5A was only several months old). Anyway, at first glance an unkowing soul would think all was fine..........except.........

#1.) All of the mobo stuff is duplicated in "Device Manager".....(i.e. Keyboard, Mouse, then under "System Devices" just about everything is duplicated.) When I try to remove the duplicates wearing the yellow exclamation mark, they're all re-found all over again upon the next reboot.

#2.) No sound!! In "Device Manager" everything looks fine under "sound, video & game controllers........no conflicts, no problems, however there's no speaker showing in the clock tray and there is no sound to be had any which way.

I did exactly as mentioned by replacing the mobo, getting everything buttoned up, then did first boot in Safe Mode. Then ran "regedit" and deleted the proper key, then restarted in regular mode. Windows did start finding things before I could get the mobo CD in, but I figured that would happen. After I had all mobo stuff in, I saved video for last & that's where I'm at right now.....the above 2 probs. <exhausted w/ my frozen burrito at my side......he he>

[Dooin' it]

OK, decided on doing a fresh install of windows but now I need somebody's help.........(Any AOL gurus?)

I've competely backed up his "My Documents" folder and some other little tidbits, but he's using AOL 9.0 and I want to properly backup at least his "address book" and preferably his "favorites" for browsing too.

Any suggestions where to find them?? Or maybe, could I acheive what I'm trying to do by backing up the entire "America Online 9.0" folder ***and*** the "AOL Companion" folder???

TIA (a million times over)

[John Prophet]

hehe....I have no clue about AOL..but on a side note I recommend norton ghost....ghost it before you do anything etc and you have a nice safety net to play with.

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http://www.connectedsw.com/AmFeatures.html I wonder if the freeware demo of this will do it?

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Have you checked AOL's website maybe?