S3 onboard graphics uninstall....help.

[banjosareunderrated]

I posted this on annoyances.org but no one had a solution so I turn to my left-leaning friends.

I had a parallel HD connected to a crappy PCchips mobo with S3 ProSavage DDR onboard graphics. Last month, I blew my tax refund on an MSI K8T Neo-2 and an AMD 64 with a new PSU and case. I don't play games too much so I chose an eVGA 5700-le 256mb video card. After putting everything together, I reinstalled Windows 2000pro while the HD was connected to my old board and at the first reboot I disconnected my HD and connected it to my new board. Everything went fine except before cleaning all data to move to a raid-o setup, I noticed that I still have S3 drivers (Vtpreset in hijckthis, along with reigstry keys that keep coming back after deletion) on my drive. I can't figure out how to get rid of these permanently. Regcleaner (program) didn't do it and I've manually deleted all the keys I know of but nothing works. Device manager shows no S3 crap and neither does add/remove programs, but Nero 6, as an example, thinks I have S3 graphics. I did try updating all nVidia drivers, chipset drivers, I flashed the Bios (needed it anyway), and I chanted to Jimi Hendrix several times ("....and so Castles made of S3 Sand suck...."). Since James Marshall is all powerful, I'm convinced that S3 has harnessed the power of taking advantage of the mentally challenged---me---or struck a deal with the powerful---Ronnie James Dio. Either way, I'm screwed and need help. Thanks in advance and viva la renaissance delo banjo.

[bemildred]

1. Did you turn off the onboard graphics chip in the BIOS setup? nt

[WLKjr]

2. Try installing windows on your HD AFTER you hook up to your new board

Your not using that shitty PCchips board anymore right? Install windows when the HD is connected to the new board. I had a problem similar to this when I was doing some upgrades a couple years ago with switching boards, except my installed windows ceased to work right after the switch.

[Spirochete]

3. IDoes the S3 card show up in safe mode

when you pull up device manager? I've had to delete things in safe mode to get rid of them before.

[banjosareunderrated]

4. thanks for the idears

I responded to myself to show that I did read all three replies and I thank you for all of them though Bemildred gets special thanks for help with my qnext issue. :)

I did check Bios settings and no onboard graphics issues. The Msi K8T doesn't have onboard graphics so there is no setting for that in Bios. Not to mention, I've cleared CMOS since my first post because of an OC problem.

WLKjr, I have tried reinstalling Windows with this board. In a nutshell, I wanted to keep all my old data from the crappy parallel HD, so I set up 2 Maxtor SATA HD's w/o an OS on the new MSI board, configed them as RAID-0 (240 gig), and powered up my old crappy machine seperately with my parallel HD. I "upgraded" to Win 2000 with a slipstream CD (which I already had) and on first reboot, I unplugged the drive and then I connected that parallel HD to my new board. My SATA drives were disconnected at that point. After that, I had my new mobo with my new processor, new everything really, connected to my old parallel HD. All my data was there---settings, data, music, movies, etc. Everything worked great. I then shut down and connected my new raid-0 HD's to the board and before Windows could boot, I used Maxtor's Maxblast program to "setup new (SATA) drive as boot drive. All data, including boot.ini, ntldr, etc. was striped at 64 kb/ps. No problems at all. So I disconnected my old ATA drive. After that, I did format my parallel with partition magic to try out Window Xp64 which was ehh, so I formatted that drive again and copied all my data to it as a backup. It's now in my tower but unplugged from power and IDE.

VSoutpaw, I did try booting into safe mode in the new setup and S3 graphics aren't found in device manager, display settings--nothing. File search show no S3 anything.

After all that, hijackthis shows VTpreset (S3 program) and Nero 6 says I have S3 graphics installed. Maybe VTpreset is being used because of a SMART Disc thing? Even so, I never had Nero on my old board so it should recognize nVidia.

I'm not very good with puters but the only thing I can think of is that my Rise of Nations game (which got transferred to my new setup along with all my save files) is carrying S3 data with it. Either that, or I should've uninstalled all my graphics drivers before connecting that HD to my new board, but, if that's the case, it's too late.

This is beguiling so I'm gonna go play HL2 and have another drink. thanks for all your help.

[bemildred]

5. Well, I prefer Jimmy Cliff, but ...

Lessee. I just put together a dual boot W98SE/FreeBSD box, so at
least my head is in the right space. For a guy that is "not very
good with puters" you are dicking around with them a lot.

Having read a bit more carefully, I see my first advice was not to
the point, although had you done your fresh W2K install in safe mode
or with all "special" drivers removed it might have helped(??) or not.

My guess is you are right, it's a file somewhere. Prolly related to
the VTpreset program, why do you still have that anyway?

I see three options:

1. Uninstall and delete-or-move all files associated with each of the
offending programs and see if the problem goes away. (I.e. clean the
registry again and see if it stays clean now, etc.)

2. Forget it, WGAS? Screw Nero and VTpreset.

3. Start over with a fresh W2K install on the new box and copy things
over bit by bit to see when/if the problem re-asserts itself. This
is the really anal option, but might eventually eludicate specific
answers.

YMMV.

[banjosareunderrated]

6. I appreciate the help bemildred

when I say I'm not very good with computers, I mean that I don't how a billion .dll files make me see pretty pictures. I can build the things but I don't know how they keep data. I know how to install a processor and make sure the heatsink is attached and move a jumper to clear CMOS and i know how to use standoffs and attach all the peripherals but I have no idea how a bunch of 0's and 1's allow me to listen to my Phish tapes through my computer's speakers. That's what I mean when I say I don't know much about computers. I do dick around with em alot only because I want to know how they work. The basics of em I get. But this S3 problem doesn't make sense to me. I don't have onboard graphics anymore and I installed new HD's so why is some residual S3 crap still there? I look at HKEY_blah_blah_blah and I see a whole lot confusion. I'm a monkey with a wrench that can't read hieroglyphics, y'know?

I hope I didn't piss you off by asking this because you've been a great help with this and other computer questions and I really really appreciate it.

I'm just gonna reinstall my game and see if that doesn't fix it.

What's YMMV?

[bemildred]

7. Nobody knows everything,

You would be amazed at how easy it is to become a
"programming wizard", if you have the knack in the first
place. Lot's of people learn one little thing, like how
to do SQL or HTML and make a career out of it.

I understand that annoyed need to make it obey. I just spent
three days figuring out that an extra shared library (DLL to you)
linked into my mozilla was causing it to puke on startup.

I never get pissed off on message boards. I will risk quoting the
Reverend Steve here:

"Arguing on the internet is like competing in the special
olympics, even if you win, you are still retarded."

YMMV means "Your Mileage Will Vary", an old hackerism:

http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/Y/Your-mileage-may-vary.html