Re: BUGFIX: Update Installation Compatibility Issues

Tech-Archive recommends: Speed Up your PC by fixing your registry

mabster wrote:
Bill Drake wrote:
Recently, there have been multiple reports of instability when
attempting to install the latest Windows Genuine Advantage
Update Tool (KB892130), along with similar problems with
some other updates as well.

Many of these problems can be traced back to Registry
Corruption - which prevents the updates from being properly
applied. There are also reports of updates not applying
because the files are not being properly written to the user's
hard disk - and consequently the update(s) cannot be
properly installed.

All the above is consistent with the consequences of an unstable
Hard Disk subsystem. Furthermore, because the Registry is by
far the most-commonly-accessed-and-written file on a Windows
machine - the Registry is one of the most-commonly-corrupted
files on *any* machine with unstable disk-drivers or unstable
disk-hardware.


Things to check:

1. Users with AMD-chipset motherboards - especially those
with nVidia nForce4 chipsets - are directed to download
and install updated motherboard BIOS and nVidia chipset
drivers *before* installing the latest updates.


Hi Bill,

What about those of us who have already installed KB892130? Will
updating BIOS firmware/drivers fix the freezing that's occurring when
we attempt to visit a page requiring WGA validation?

See this thread: http://tinyurl.com/l2sd8

Matt

Hi, Matt. Here are the things I've found so far:

Observations:

1. Installation of Windows XP on an Asus P4P800SE with the latest
motherboard BIOS (1011), the latest Intel Chipset Drivers (7.2.2.1006)
and the latest Intel Matrix Storage Drivers (5.5.0.1035) will *appear*
to work properly when used with a pair of Maxtor 6L250S0 SATA
drives in RAID1 mode (Mirrored) installed using WXP-SP2 with an
F6-Floppy. My initial installs used the factory-installed BANC1G10
firmware.

2. After the Installation of Norton Internet Security 2006 and Norton
SystemWorks 2006 Premier (includes Ghost), the array will not
work with Ghost if Norton System Doctor is running. Also, the
array will not Speed Disk - the array will hang at the start of the
"sorting" phase of a Speed Disk run. Both these problems are
reliably repeatable over multiple WXP-SP2 installations.

3. After I talked to Maxtor, They provided the BANC1G20 firmware
update. This was installed successfully - but it did NOT fix either
of the problems mentioned in Item2 on a retroactive basis.

4. Interestingly, doing a complete reformat and reinstall-from-scratch
with the BANC1G20 firmware in place allowed Speed Disk to work
properly. Obviously, something in the older firmware allowed a very
subtle disk-corruption to occur which manifested as the Speed
Disk hang.

And therefore, to answer your original question:

Yes, a complete reinstall-from-scratch *may* be required after
all the necessary driver/firmware updates are in place, in order
to clear out whatever subtle already-existing-disk-corruption is
causing the updates to fail to install properly.

5. I now have a set of Samsung drives to replace the Maxtors, and I
am experimenting with these to see if a simple change of drives
to a brand known for better compatibility will solve both problems
or not.

For more details on the loooooong history of my investigations of
this problem, see:

http://www.boardfish.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=122&PN=1



Conclusions:

1. The Intel 875P and 865PE Chipsets, when used with Northwood P4
CPUs, are known to be the standard-of-reference for stability when
dealing with hyperthreaded CPUs and Dual-Channel memory.
If this hardware is cranky, the problem definitely rates investigation
and resolution. There is no excuse for problems with hardware this
mature.

2. For users with nVidia nF4-chipset motherboards, there is either a
bug in the nF4 chipset or a bug in earlier drivers that *also* manifests
as subtle disk-corruption. This is *above and beyond* the obvious
problem with startup-stalls that the Maxtor firmware updates are
designed to handle.

3. However, because of the issue mentioned in Item4 in the
Observation Section, I am now focusing on the interaction
between the SATA drivers and the SATA firmware in the
drives -- because I think Item4 above indicates there is a
problem with the SATA flow-control of Data I/O during regular
disk use *over and above* the problem with the startup-stalls
that Maxtor has already admitted.

4. I already have a case open with Microsoft about this issue, as
there is a KB article (906678) which may also have a bearing
on this problem. Since Ghost 9/10 is a DotNet 1.1 application,
this is definitely a possibility and warrants further investigation
with the proper hardware protocol analyzers. This is required
in order to ensure bus activity on the ICH5R is occurring reliably,
both between the ICH5R and the SATA drives *as well as*
between the ICH5R and the dedicated CPU I/O bus-channel
serving the ICH5R when run in enhanced SATA mode.

Note: Once the ICH5R has been verified-stable, it will be
an easy exercise to compare the bus traces of the
mature hardware with the newer nVidia nF4 and
Intel 900-series chipsets - to ensure the other
chipset-driver sets are working correctly as well.


Comments:

1. As usual when dealing with multi-vendor compatibility issues,
I'm getting *deathly silence* from all parties when I bring my
observations and conclusions to their attention.

2. Since it is obvious there is something seriously wrong, (and
this newsgroup is ample evidence of that), and there has
been no movement on this problem for several months, I am
no longer willing to hear lies, evasion and specious BS about
this issue.

3. I want this problem investigated and resolved. With the
demonstrated lack of responsibility inherent in the lack of
a coherent response to this problem - the only way to deal
with this issue is to publicize the problem widely and get
lots of people royally annoyed at the stupidity and
intransigence of the people responsible for yet another
debacle.



Best I can do for now. <tm>


Bill



.

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