| HAL |
Hardware Abstraction Layer. This piece of software within Windows helps it deal
with different categories of motherboard. In the beginning there was the
"Standard" PC, which needs the "Standard PC" HAL, and also specials
for some Compaqs and SGIs.
For "Standard" motherboards which support multiprocessors the "MPS
Multiprocessor PC" HAL was added. Then for ACPI
motherboards the single processor "Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI)
PC" HAL, and the corresponding "ACPI Multiprocessor PC" HAL was needed.
Nowadays (for a good half-decade) most people have the "Advanced Configuration and
Power Interface (ACPI) PC" HAL. If you have a multiprocessor or multicore CPU you
will have the "ACPI Multiprocessor PC" HAL.
To view the HAL type, expand the Computer entry in the Device Manager tree (access it
from the Computer Management or "My Computer" / Properties).
Under Win2K you can change easily from an ACPI single processor to ACPI multiprocessor
HAL, or vice versa. And similarly from a Standard single processor HAL to a multiprocessor
one. But you can't change so easily between these "types", see MS KB Article ID 246236 for an explanation. |
| Changing HAL for a change in
processor or core count |
Read about HAL to ensure you know what to select. Update the repair info!
Expand "Computer" in the Device Manager, right-click the HAL shown, select
properties and press "Update Driver..." on the Driver sheet. Follow the wizard
and select the CORRECT HAL, a reboot is required. |
| ACPI |
Advanced Configuration and Power Interface For
the last few years computers have been better at configuration and power management.
This has required a motherboard and BIOS that supports it. In turn the ACPI HAL was required. See the HAL description to find out how to check what
you have. |
| IDE |
For many years the main standard for the connection of hard disks in a PC. It has
evolved up to the 133 standard, but is now being slowly pushed aside by SATA and SATA II
drives. The other main alternative is the SCSI interface. Every motherboard has one or
two IDE connectors to support 2 or 4 IDE drives. And it is also possible to buy controller
cards that also provide additional IDE connectors. And both types sometimes come with RAID
support.
See also IDE Drivers |
| IDE Drivers |
Like display cards support the original 640x480 "VGA mode" for compatibility
(ie Windows needs no special drivers, Windows has built-in support ("Standard Dual
Channel PCI IDE Controller") for "vanilla" use of IDE controllers, as well
as specific (better performing) drivers for certain IDE chipsets. So Windows can always
access an on board IDE controller (when installed on a new PC), and afterwards can load
better IDE drivers if needed. But it doesn't have support for the various RAID and
controller card options, these have to be provided on a disk when first installing windows
on a new PC. If a motherboard is changed (not replaced with an identical one) the
chances are that the IDE chipset will change, so any "chipset specific" drivers
will no longer work, and Windows may display the "Bue Screen of Death" (BSOD) on
startup (not always perhaps, information appreciated). However if the chipset drivers are
previously uninstalled and replaced with the "Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE
Controller" then Windows CAN boot, and the proper drivers will either be installed as
part of automatic New Hardware detection, or manually instigated. See below for procedure
for changing the driver. |
| Vista Specifications |
Vista (the renamed Longhorn, minus the horns it seems) and its "Aero Glass
3D" will use DirectX 9, or 10 depending what you read. Quite whether any boards yet
support the full hardware requirement I'm not sure, but won't be buying one yet. eWeek.com,
Aug 05 - Will Your PC Run Windows Vista? "For Aero effects video graphics
cards should support: DirectX 9 with an LDDM [Longhorn Display Driver Model] driver, 32
bpp [bits per pixel] color depth, and 64MB of graphics RAM."
(NB: It seems VERY unlikely that 64MB will be enough for a real use with multiple open
windows.) |
| AMD M2 |
This is one of the new AMD CPU Socket types coming out in 2006 (some boards expected
at CeBIT). It will support their Virtualisation enhancements as well as DDR2 memory |
| VMWARE Guest preparation |
I found that I couldn't restart the suspended guests (under VMWARE 4.00) as they
were
... virtual machine that use[s] floating point features that do not match the
supported features on the real machine".
The suspended image had to be discarded and the guests restarted as if they had
"crashed".
Also VMWARE previously reported that the processor had CPUID bits that it didn't
recognise:
The processor in this machine returns a CPUID feature bit not understood by this
version of the product",
but I think that doesn't matter.
When the guest was booted there was also the following message:
The CMOS of this virtual machine is incompatible with the current
version of VMware Workstation.
A new CMOS with default values will be used instead.
After that it all seemed fine. |
| Update the repair
information |
Use the supplied Windows Backup utility (Accessories/System Tools) and select
"Repair". It says to put in a floppy disk, that is of course best, but if you
check the checkbox "Also backup the registry to the repair directory.
" it will make that copy (in the repair directory) before it realises there is no
floppy disk). |
| Boot From CD |
To boot from a CD you may need to enable CD drive booting in the BIOS and set the
priority above that of the hard disk. |
| Save LAN Connector Setup |
Record the data from the TCP/IP properties dialog. One value you won't see is any MTU
value, this often has to be set to make web-browsing work properly (a fragmentation
issue), so will be needed for a new LAN Connector. If you have a utility to read this
value use it. One way of doing recording all the information, although it is slightly
cryptic, is to print out the whole registry entry details for the LAN connector. Without
changing anything, browse the registry to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\Interfaces
You will see a list of Keys with {XXXXXXXX- lots more) type names. To match one of
these to our LAN connector you have to look through them and spot the details that match
the LAN connector. Take note of any "MTU" value, ideally print out the whole
thing. |
| Selecting the
Standard IDE driver |
In the Device Manager, expand "IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers" and expect to see
"Primary IDE Channel", "Secondary IDE Channel" and a chipset specific
one like "VIA Bus MasterIDE Controller". This specific one is the one to
change; right-click it, select Properties. Then select Driver on the dialog tabs and press
"Update Driver...". See the New Hardware Wizard, move to the page that allows
you to select "Display a list of known Drivers for this device so I can choose a
specific driver" and press Next. See a list including "Standard Dual Channel PCI
IDE Controller"and select that one, proceed through the Wizard. [It might be
just as good to delete the driver by using the "Uninstall" option on the popup
menu.] |
| Selecting the
Standard VGA driver |
In the Device Manager, expand "Display Adapters" and expect to see a
board specific one for your card. Right-click it, select Uninstall and follow the
instructions. |
| Motherboard removal |
Traditionally the motherboard is held in with various bolts / screws. But different
cases will have different methods designed to speed the job of system builders, but
confuse the rest of us.
 | Some replace some screws with snap-on plastic stands. |
| Some have metal lugs with a slight "hook" at the top. The motherboard is held
by a small metal plat under the card slots that is held by single lateral screw accessed
from outside of the case. Once the screw is withdraw from the metal plate the motherboard
unhooks from the lugs. (eg Alto 810 Tower) |
And some will be even more ingenious. |
| IP Ghost and Ghost
removal |
This error message will appear if you enter a fixed IP and the IP is "in
use" by a "ghost" LAN connector. The IP address XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX
you have entered for this network adapter is already assigned to another adapter Name
of adapter. Name of adapter is hidden from the network and Dial-up
Connections folder because it is not physically in the computer or is a legacy adapter
that is not working. If the same address is assigned to both adapters and they become
active, only one of them will use this address. This may result in incorrect system
configuration. Do you want to enter a different IP address for this adapter in the list of
IP addresses in the advanced dialog box?
This is the reason for deleting ghost LAN adapters. The MS KB Article No 269155 describes it and how to remove
(Uninstall) the ghost from the Device Manager. |
| General
Ghost Removal from Device Manager |
See the note about LAN/IP
Connector Ghost removal. When the Device Manager is run with
"devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1" set (after the motherboard change) there will
usually be quite a few "ghosts" shown (the greyed ones). The error text is
"This device is not present, is not working properly, or does not
have all its drivers installed. (Code 24)
I found these duplicate ghosts for quite a few "common" devices, eg under
Keyboards there was both a greyed (ghost) and ordinary entry for the same Keyboard name.
Quite what the best practice is for deleting them I'm not sure, at your own risk you
could delete the following, I did:
| Display Adapter/Adapter Name - This was there because I hadn't Uninstalled it before the
motherboard change. But when I uninstalled it after the change the uninstaller that ran
uninstalled the active copy (and "Display Adapters" disappeared from the Device
Manager completely). I reinstalled it again. |
| Disk Drives/Drive Name (normally the alphanumeric id) |
| Modems/Modem Name |
| Human Interface Devices/Name |
| Mouse and Other Pointing Devices/PS/2 Compatible Mouse |
| Ports/ECP Printer Port |
The procedure is to select the GREYED driver (not the ordinary one), right-click it,
and select Uninstall... and follow the instructions. |
