So, a friend of mine mentioned she asked her boyfriend about this, and apparently, both the DVD-ROM and the PCI Express worked perfectly fine on this board—provided I just did a clean installation... but there's a catch, I can't quite since my optical drive isn't cooperating, which means I'm stuck unable to boot from a CD. My only real option right now is booting via USB, but I don't actually have a thumb drive lying around somewhere. Is there any way I can somehow get this optical drive to behave so I can finally get Windows installed?
I honestly can’t recall ever dealing with such catastrophic issues with any motherboard I've owned... It feels like the whole thing is either completely dead or I'm just tripping over some driver mess because I haven't done a clean install yet.
So, I realize last night that my DVD drive isn't being recognized by Windows at all—not in Device Manager, nowhere. It doesn't even show up when I mash F11 during startup to try and boot from a disc; for instance, if I wanted to reinstall Windows, the option just isn't there. All I see in the boot menu are the hard drive and the floppy, which is just... what? Which means I'm stuck in a spot where I can't even attempt a Windows installation via CD if I actually wanted to. -.-
The little light on the optical drive stays lit constantly. Once I get into Windows, the eject button becomes totally unresponsive. I can't even get a disc into the tray; the only time the button actually works is right after I power on the PC, but once it hits that Windows welcome screen, the button stops working entirely.
It's bizarre... but honestly, what good would a disc do me if the system won't recognize it anywhere? And now I can't even eject a disc while I'm in Windows, so I'm forced to just restart the whole machine.
I spent some time digging through Google for fixes when Windows fails to detect hardware, but nothing I found is going to help me here. My issue is much more fundamental; the system isn't recognizing my PCI Express slots anywhere either. The PCI Express x16 slot only shows up in Everest, and even then, the optical drive isn't detected there.
I've checked the cables for the optical drive and they seem fine, the power connection looks solid too, and I even swapped out the IDE cable, but still nothing. The DVD drive itself has to be functional, that's a given, because why would it just quit on me right now? There's no way; it was working perfectly fine on my old board until yesterday. In all the time I've spent putting together builds for myself and others, I don't think a single motherboard has ever given me this much grief. Even a friend mentioned she wasn't entirely sure if it was in good shape to begin with; I probably shouldn't have picked it up, but now I'm just stuck dealing with this headache. Nobody gives you anything high-quality for free, after all. xD
At this point, I might just go buy a different one $67, something that fits this CPU, and call it a day. Because realistically, getting both the DVD drive and the PCI Express x16 port to work again seems like a lost cause.
Just to add a little more context here—when I swapped out my motherboard, I didn't bother reinstalling Windows. I know, I know, I've read everywhere that it's absolutely essential and technically the "right" way to do things, but I just didn't get around to it since everything seemed to be functioning fine enough. At first, the USB ports were acting a bit wonky, but I managed to sort that out pretty quickly because my keyboard and mouse weren't responding via USB, though it only took me about two minutes to fix. After I finished installing the drivers, everything was up and running, despite a few minor compatibility hiccups along the way..
So, I just couldn't bring myself to go through the whole hassle of a clean OS installation again..
Even if I were to try a fresh Windows install now, I highly doubt it would make a difference if the PCI Express slot is actually damaged. It’s clearly a hardware issue at this point -.-
ironcyclist58 said:You might need to dive into the BIOS and disable the integrated graphics... basically just tell it to prioritize the dedicated card instead.
Look, I already mentioned that I tried doing that right off the bat... and honestly, it’s still not working the way it should.
I decided to put together a little custom rig recently, mostly because a friend of mine handed me an old motherboard she wasn't using anymore, and I figured, why not see what I could do with it? Intel Core i5-2500K I'm sitting here looking at my setup, and I’ve somehow ended up with just 3.0 GB of DDR2 RAM to work with. I’ve been digging through some older hardware lately, specifically looking at this ALiveNF7G-FullHD R3.0 AM2/AM2+ motherboard, and I can't help but feel a little nostalgic for the era when things were just slightly less complicated than they are today. It’s one of those pieces of kit that really makes you appreciate how far we've come, though sometimes I wonder if we lost a bit of that simple charm along the way. I’ve been looking into this LC6550GP2 V2.2 550W Green Power power supply unit, and honestly, I find myself wondering if anyone actually relies on these things for anything serious anymore. It’s one of those units that feels like it belongs to a different era of PC building, back when we weren't quite so obsessed with every single watt of efficiency or the massive power draws of modern GPUs. It's a decent enough little component if you're just trying to get an old machine up and running, but I suppose if you're planning on throwing a high-end Nvidia card in there, you might want to look for something a bit more robust. It's fine for a basic setup, though I can't help but feel a little nostalgic for the days when hardware was a bit more straightforward, even if it meant dealing with much less efficient power delivery. Everything seems to be running perfectly fine on my end—temperatures are looking good and nothing is showing any signs of overheating.
So, I’ve run into a bit of a headache: my dedicated graphics card is stuck running off the integrated graphics because my PCI Express x16 slot seems to have completely given up on life. 🙂 I’m running into a bit of a nightmare here where absolutely none of my graphics cards are working; I've gone through several different ones now—all perfectly functional, mind you—but nothing seems to take. I've got one right here at home that I know for a fact works perfectly, and to top it off, I even had someone from Craigslist swing by yesterday to check it out. It looks like I’m running into the same issue with the graphics card, which really points to a problem somewhere along the PCI Express slot itself. I actually reached out to a friend to see if she had ever successfully run a GPU on this specific motherboard, and she mentioned that she has, so it’s clearly not just a dead board. I honestly haven't a clue; she probably just stuck with the integrated graphics and called it a day. I did try blowing out the slot a few times to clear out any dust, but that's about as far as I got with it. Still nothing. I tried pulling the battery to reset things and went into the BIOS to manually set the primary PCI Express slot for the graphics card, but it’s just not budging.
So, there's one thing I should probably mention—when everything is plugged directly into the graphics card, the fan spins up perfectly fine without any drama. The PCI Express slot is actually showing some signs of life, and I’ve even managed to boot right into Windows—though, naturally, there's absolutely no video signal to speak of. Still, hearing that familiar startup sound tells me the system is actually loading the OS, which gives me a little glimmer of hope that we might actually get somewhere with this. I suppose I could try a BIOS update to see if that clears things up, though honestly, I’m not holding my breath that it'll actually make a difference. I mean, let’s be real here—it’s not just one faulty card; it feels like if I tried to plug in a hundred different graphics cards right now, not a single one of them would actually work. It really ought to work regardless of whether I decide to mess with a BIOS update or not; on my last ancient motherboard, I could have tossed in just about any graphics card under the sun—whether it was an AMD or an Nvidia card—and it would have worked without a single hiccup. Everything was working perfectly fine before this. ☕ They were working perfectly fine before I went ahead and updated the BIOS, so... that's just great.
So, if anyone out there actually has a clue what else I might be able to try... I’m really hoping to avoid swapping out the motherboard again, though it seems like my only option if that PCI Express slot is truly dead. I've been digging around to see if... The capacitors around it look like they’ve been blooming or bulging, but honestly, they aren't... so I’m just sitting here scratching my head wondering why the damn thing won't boot. It boots straight into Windows just fine, but I’m staring at absolutely nothing—just a total black screen where the image should be. I wouldn't exactly put my money on the drivers being reliable here...
What really drives me up the wall is being stuck using this integrated 256 MB graphics chip; it’s just painfully inadequate, so I actually had to go ahead and disable Aero in Windows just to make things somewhat tolerable. Honestly, if only Google... I was typing away earlier and dealing with this annoying lag where my keystrokes were falling behind my fingers, but now that I've turned it off, everything seems to be running smoothly again. I ran into this exact same headache with my previous motherboard; the integrated graphics just weren't up to the task of running Windows 7 properly, and once things started to go south... So, I finally pulled the trigger on that Aero graphics card, and honestly, it’s a total beaut—it looks like it could fly. But of course, because my luck is exactly what you'd expect, it just won't work with this motherboard. Everything's plugged in, but absolutely nothing is happening. Just my luck, really. I don't even have that old motherboard anymore—I finally decided to get rid of it, mostly because its maximum RAM capacity was capped at a measly 2 GB, which honestly made it little more than expensive junk.
I suppose I could hunt around for an AM2+ or AM3 motherboard if I really had to, though honestly, the thought of messing around with that old hardware just doesn't do much for me anymore. I really should have known better than to go hunting for deals like this; I’ve already been burned a few times before, and honestly, I have a nagging feeling that this specific PCI Express slot is just going to end up causing me more grief. It’s honestly driving me a little crazy at this point... I’ve reached that frustrating stage where I can barely launch any decent games anymore, unless they're just some really basic, low-spec stuff. It feels like I'm staring at ancient history with this integrated 256 MB of video memory. 😵
I’ve also noticed that my 1080p HD movies are stuttering a little bit, which is honestly a bit frustrating because I was really hoping to rely on the integrated graphics for this; after all, the processor itself isn't exactly a weakling when it comes to handling HD video playback. 😉
I should probably mention that I’m definitely planning on saving some cash for a proper power supply for the GPU, just so nobody jumps to any wrong conclusions about my budget! But honestly, looking at the situation, I’ve got a nagging feeling that the PCI Express slot itself is just straight-up damaged. 😢 Who on earth knows who actually had their hands on this motherboard before me? Honestly, it’s anyone's guess at this point.
Why on earth do these General Electric batteries I pick up at Best Buy die so fast?🤔 They’ll hold up for about a year, and then suddenly my computer clock starts losing time; I’ve already gone through two replacements now, and I'm back to square one with this current motherboard where the clock is lagging by about 20 minutes... the best any of them seem to last before drifting is a single year. Is it just poor quality cells, or am I just dealing with ancient motherboards? It seems like Best Buy doesn't even carry anything else besides these $3.25 ones.
I distinctly remember one CMOS battery lasting nearly eight years before the clock finally started to drift, yet these from Best Buy barely make it through twelve months—it's honestly baffling. This latest one was also from Best Buy, bought back in the fall, and everything seemed perfectly fine until I noticed over the last few days that the clock is lagging again. ^^
I’ve been dealing with this constant foot pain for about three years now, which basically means I own a handful of sneakers, but there’s this one old pair of Nike runners that causes absolutely zero issues, even if I spend the entire day on my feet.. The thing is, I have other shoes I actually want to wear, but they just end up making my feet and ankles ache constantly 😢 Honestly, when I see people walking around the city wearing those super thin-soled shoes, I just don't get it 🤔, because for me, it isn't just discomfort—it feels like I'm literally dying.. I really wish I could wear most of my footwear without thinking twice, mostly because it would make shopping so much easier.. Right now, I’m always stuck being hyper-vigilant.. And before anyone suggests it, no amount of orthotics helps; I’ve tried everything under the sun, and I've basically thrown money down the drain on expensive custom insoles -.- What works for me is a firm sole, something like an Adidas Superstar; in those, I never feel a thing because I don't feel the impact of the concrete, but it confuses me—if I have these foot and ankle issues, shouldn't it hurt in all types of shoes? 🤔
I remember back when I was younger, I could wear thinner soles without any trouble at all, but nowadays, that feels like an impossible mission.. I probably spent years drinking way too much milk and eating nothing but junk food, so maybe that’s why, hmm
Should I start taking supplements or something? Or maybe overhaul my diet.. perhaps then I could actually enjoy more varieties of sneakers, because it’s incredibly frustrating having two pairs of shoes sitting at home that I can only wear occasionally because they cause so much pain, so I only pull them out when I know I won't be walking much and will mostly be sitting..
Even my slippers have to be those old-school, rigid ones, because I simply can't handle soft ones It’s almost hard to believe, but my ankles and heels start acting up before I can even finish brewing a cup of coffee😱 whereas four or five years ago, I could wear pretty much any kind of slipper, which tells me something definitely shifted 😢.. Today, I actually had to head downtown in my oldest, clunkiest sneakers because my newer ones were too painful, and there is absolutely no chance that I’m buying more new shoes right now; I really want to fix the underlying cause, otherwise my only option is to switch entirely to dress shoes, since those are all firm at the heel anyway hahah
Larry Ortiz5 said:If you can't find the motherboard drivers on the official manufacturer's website, you're probably going to have a hard time finding them anywhere else unless you start digging through some sketchy third-party site. That said, it might be worth giving it a shot with Vista by using Compatibility mode; there's a chance it could actually work. I remember just last year, I was struggling to get Windows 10 running on this absolute relic of an old machine I had lying around, and I actually managed to breathe life back into an ancient WLAN card just by messing with the compatibility settings..
I'll probably get this motherboard installed in a couple of days; I just finished rearranging my PC setup, and honestly, I’m feeling a little too lazy to dive right back in immediately... xD
So, here's the thing: once I start looking through the drivers, there isn't anything listed for Windows 7... it's just Windows XP, Vista, and so on. I wonder if those Vista ones might actually work, though I'd probably have to rely on Compatibility mode . I actually went ahead and grabbed some drivers from a third-party site for Windows 7, assuming they aren't total junk, but since the official site doesn't list anything for Windows 7, I'm a bit stuck.
The older board I'm currently running actually has drivers for both Windows 7 and 8 right there on the official site...
Here it is: https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/M2...Desk_Download/
This current one is ancient; I tossed it into this rig way back in 2008, so it’s definitely time for an upgrade. It tops out at just 2 GB of RAM, whereas this new one handles 16 GB... plus it's AM2+. I could potentially drop in a legendary Phenom X4 if I can snag one for a bargain, especially since I already have a decent cooler, and I actually got this motherboard for free. I know, I know—it's probably not worth trying to breathe new life into old hardware, but it still serves its purpose perfectly fine for me since I make sure to clean out the dust regularly, swap out the thermal paste, and keep a close eye on temperatures. ☕ I've got a solid power supply and everything, and because I have plenty of spare parts lying around, whenever something finally gives out, I can just swap it out without much fuss. 😉
Anyway, I was just curious about the driver situation for this ASRock AliveNF7G full HD motherboard.
Have you taken a quick look at your temperatures just to be safe? I mean, check the CPU, the motherboard, all that stuff. Maybe try swapping in a different power supply—borrow one from a buddy if you can—but don't grab some bottom-of-the-barrel unit since I'm not entirely sure what your actual setup looks like.
It could also be an issue with the graphics card; I actually dealt with something pretty similar recently where it would boot up half the time and just fail the other half. If your processor has integrated graphics, try plugging the monitor directly into the motherboard instead of the GPU to see if that changes anything. Also, take a peek inside the case to make sure it isn't just choked with dust... double-check all your cable connections and things like that; honestly, you just have to work through the process of elimination. You should probably run a scan on the hard drive using HD Tune (and please, don't just do a quick scan), and maybe install CrystalDiskInfo or Hard Disk Sentinel too, just so you can get a real sense of the drive's health.
Kimberly Gomez34 said:That’s right, you won't see any performance drops since the AM2+ socket is fully compatible with both AM2 and AM2+ processors. Just a heads-up: you can always find the specific CPU support list and the required BIOS version on the manufacturer's official website.
aha 👍
I guess I just want to be certain I have the full list of supported CPUs handy; that's how I handled my current rig before I picked up this processor from a guy on Craigslist, though I haven't actually checked yet because I'm not entirely sure which specific motherboard I'm looking at until I go pick it up tomorrow... but okay, 😉
I’ve had this processor sitting in my old AM2 motherboard setup for quite a while now, having picked up the chip on eBay ages ago to pair with a board I already owned..
So, a buddy of mine is about to hand over an AM2+ motherboard, and I’m wondering if my current processor is going to play nice with it; I assume they're compatible, though maybe it'll run just a hair slower since it's an AM2 chip rather than an AM2+ one... I'm not entirely sure if I'll need to mess with a BIOS update, but it's been working perfectly fine on my current board..
Here is what the wiki says: 😁
AMD confirmed that AM2 processors will work on AM2+ motherboards and AM2+ processors will work on AM2 motherboards. However, the operation of AM2+ processors on AM2 motherboards will be limited to the specifications of Socket AM2 (1 GHz HyperTransport 2.0, and one power plane for both cores and the IMC). AM2 processors do not benefit from the faster HyperTransport 3.0 and separate power planes on AM2+ motherboards. As with AM2 components, AM2+ CPUs and motherboards are designed to use DDR2 RAM exclusively.
And honestly, I might just look into picking up a Phenom for the AM2+ socket down the road.
I’ve also spent about half my life working with AMD processors, haha... I can't say I've ever run into any major headaches, though all my graphics cards have been NVIDIA up until now. ☕
I need a quick answer on this, please—I'm working on a computer that’s currently logged into eBay and I really don't want to linger here longer than necessary.
Why on earth is my CPU hitting such insane temperatures? I can't tell if it's just some freak thermal spike or if my motherboard is actually on the verge of melting down. :///
It feels pretty hot to the touch, honestly—definitely running much warmer than my PC does. I’ve been scrolling through some threads where people are claiming the numbers are just fake or that we're looking at a cumulative total rather than real-time data, but honestly, if that were actually the case, I can't quite wrap my head around why things are feeling so incredibly heated right now.
I know they pop up on eBay all the time, but I got burned pretty bad by a seller there once, so I'm a bit wary.
Plus, since I'm out here in San Diego, there isn't much local stock on Craigslist, which makes it impossible to actually test the board if I order something from a big city like Chicago or New York.
So, I figured I'd check here first—if anyone on the forum has one gathering dust in a drawer and wants to let it go for a decent price, let me know! 🙂
I’ve been running into some pretty massive issues with the forum over the last few days; while I can get the homepage to load just fine, I can't seem to open a single subforum to save my life. Sometimes, if I’m incredibly lucky and try about a hundred times, one might actually load, and even then, I can only access specific threads if I click them directly from the main landing page. As for getting into the subforums, it's basically impossible 🙂 🙂 because the loading icon just spins endlessly without ever actually showing me anything—though, in a weird twist of fate, I can occasionally manage to open a PDF file, which feels like a minor miracle. ^^ Of course, if one thing works, half of everything else breaks, which is just great... everything was working perfectly fine just a few days ago. ☕
This is honestly such a disaster... I was actually really enjoying that feature, but now I’ve completely lost the motivation to keep posting here. It feels like every single forum I join eventually just falls apart, which is honestly pretty mind-blowing 😵 , especially on Yahoo. I spent years being an active part of the community there, but then all the features started breaking one by one until eventually you couldn't even log in anymore—it's totally dead now. -.- I really, truly hope this place doesn't end up meeting the exact same fate. ☕
If I’m looking to sell some sneakers on eBay, what’s the best way to handle shipping to the buyer? Should I just drop the package off at the post office and have them cover the shipping costs if that's what we agreed on? I’ve honestly never sent anything through the mail before, so I’m a little lost here 😬 🤦
I could send the shoes as a standard package, or maybe try something like cash on delivery? Hmm...