PNA boot issue

[jmonette]

Hi everyone,

I have a PNA that I'm trying to fix for a while now. I have an E8358A with the 500MHz CPU. I have a WinXP and W2K hard drive for it that are known functional.

My issue is that the PNA doesn't boot. The splash screen of Windows come and stay for a while with the loading bar moving then the screen goes black and stay that way forever. It does boot without any issue in safe mode. Therefore, I'm confident that the basic minimal hardware should be enough for it to boot.

It as been on my desk for over 4 months now, and I'm not getting any closer to make it work. The last thing I tried in safe mode is to do a Diagnostic startup and it showed the same behavior. I'm not sure what to do from this point, any ideas?
Thanks

[tonyh88]

and both drive with win XP and win 2K show the same behavior? If yes and it works in safe mode it would point to a driver issue.

Is there a graphic card in that unit?  Have you tried uninstalling the video card driver while booted in safe mode?

[jmonette]

Yes, both drives as the same behavior. I tried to update the video driver, but it's an old chip that is not supported since 2003. I found a driver for, but Windows detected it as older as what was installed on it. I uninstall the driver and installed the one I found. Sadly, it behaved the same.
Since it's a proprietary motherboard without any standard PCI connector, placing a dedicated GPU isn't a real possibility.

Is there a way to boot in windows using the driver of the safe mode?
thanks

[tonyh88]

Well actually if you just uninstall the driver it should boot with the generic windows driver that's why I was wondering. Maybe try just uninstalling the driver in safe mode and rebooting

[jmonette]

You were right! Now it boots!!!

Should I try to find a functional driver or is it pointless? Is there any reason why I should install the driver? The video quality won't be much better...

Now, there is a new issue! That's the wonder of trying to fix a scrap PNA!

Thanks a lot!

[tonyh88]

Glad to hear that !!

The driver was probably corrupt. You could try to find and reinstall a copy of the good one but if it boots and the resolution is fine for you I wouldn't worry too much about it. Fix everything else that is wrong with the PNA andif you still want to update the driver by then you can come back to this

Start a new thread if you have other issues on this unit