Self-built PC's Bios won't run

Helpline Q&A Directory

I decided to build a new PC, as it was something I had successfully done in the past. The build went okay, but when I tried installing Windows 98 I got: 'Standard Mode: Fault outside of MS-DOS Extender. EC=000 CS=03AF IP=0DA8 AX=0386 BX=0386 CX=0386 DX=0000 SI=2400 DI=4C40 BP=0000 DS=03C7 ES=0000 SS=027F SP=0F02. Please remove any floppy disks from your drives and press any key to restart your system'.

After pressing a key, the PC restarted, then came up with: 'Error loading gdi.exe. Please remove any floppy disks from your drives and press any key to restart your system'.

After pressing a key the PC restarts, then comes back with the original message, and so on in a loop. Is it a memory problem? If so, should I take the RAM back for exchange? Or is it a processor, motherboard or Windows problem?

I have also tried to install Windows 98 SE, NT 4.0 and Me, all without success. Once, I got to within 11 minutes of the end of the install, then got the message: 'Fatal exception 0E has occurred at 0028:C02730F8 in vxd vmm(06)+ 000030F8'.

There's a down side to building your own PC, which is that there's a chance the computer won't work. If it doesn't, the suppliers who sold you the parts won't usually help. Without the resources of an engineer or computer manufacturer at your disposal, it can be terribly hard to solve the problem.

You don't say which operating system installed nearly all the way through, but we think your best chance of success would be to try Windows Me. As we've said before, it's a bad idea to try installing an old OS on new hardware. The software won't have been tested for use on that hardware, and changes may have had to be made to the latest release in order for it to work on that hardware. A new PC with this specification would come with either Windows Me or 2000 installed, so that's the operating system you should be using.

The trouble is that you have no way of knowing whether the hardware itself is sound. A component may have been faulty when you received it (unlikely, but possible), it may have been damaged due to inadequate antistatic precautions being taken during assembly, or there may be an incompatibility between, say, your motherboard and the graphics card.

A good DOS-based diagnostic utility would help to prove the hardware: examples are PC-Doctor (www.pc-doctor.com) or QuickTech Pro 2000 (www.ultra-x.co.uk). These professional products are expensive for infrequent end-user use. However, cheaper consumer-market diagnostics like CheckIt (www.smithmicro.com) are often not all that effective.

The only other way to track down the problem is by swapping parts: trying a different processor, other RAM chips or another type of graphics card. This is why system building is best left to the professionals, who have easy access to these things.

As a long shot, changing some of the advanced Bios settings - for example, slowing the bus speed - could be all that is needed to make the system run reliably. The only way to find out, unfortunately, is by trial and error. See also tip Self-built PC's Bios won't run