USB bugs / glitches? Don't get me started.
Anyway that one is RMAed so no point in debugging that.
ABIT: VISTA has a KNOWN problem where it'll blue screen of death or otherwise
crash GUARANTEED on install if you have *3* Gb or more of RAM; I'm not sure
if that counts the RAM on your video card which would cause your main system RAM
to fragment into various places some over the 3GB mark even if you might have
less than 3Gb.
ONCE you get it installed (lovely, eh?) THEN it'll download an update that'll let you
use more RAM than 3GBy, but apparently you HAVE to pull sticks to install with
1GBy or 2GBy or so or you'll never get it installed right.
Nice new OS that they didn't bother to test instlaling with 4GBy of memory eh?
Other issues, I tore my hair out for 7 hours trying to install VISTA due to various
problems, XP32 installed *FINE* on the *SAME* hardware on a different disk
partition like 30 minutes before I started installing VISTA for a dual-boot.
It may NOT be a hardware problem of yours, it may be VISTA.
You mentioned an XP partition, though obviously you changed so much hardware that
it's unhappy too, so maybe that's not so easy to test with.
I'd advise you to download / burn the MEMTEST86+ bootable CD image (maybe from
a friends / work PC if necessary), and try running that to see if it uncovers any errors
in a couple hours of testing. If not, that's pretty good evidence your system isn't
totally hosed.
Then I'd advise taking a "LIVE CD" bootable CD image of a recent LINUX release like
say FEDORA 8 X86_64 if you want to test 64 bit to use VISTA 64, or the I686 version
if you want to run VISTA 32 bit. Burn boot CDs for the "LIVE CD" images,
and just *SEE* if it boots or has any massive crash / flake out. Maybe if the
particular drivers are incompatible with your hardware it won't even start to boot
well, or maybe it'll not have a working wireless or whatever peripheral. But
if it even MOSTLY works it's pretty STRONG evidence that the PC hardware is
not necessarily bad. Don't get too much into it, just browse the web, leave it
running all night, copy a few files, burn a CD with junk on it, whatever, just a few
simple tests.
As for VISTA? I seem to remember having to deal with putting my CD/DVD drive
as a MASTER instead of a SLAVE device. I think I had to download the
motherboard/chipset/ SATA/IDE/LAN driver executables / floppy images, manually
extract the files for the various drivers, then FORCE VISTA to load various and
random ones of those manually in the very start of installation to get it to even
find my DVD or something like that. I think I may have had to diddle with the
"Enable/Disable USB Legacy Devices" setting in the BIOS. I think I diddled the
IDE/SATA drive modes to turn off DMA and force PIO4 mode for the HDDs/DVDs too.
Anyway it took many hours to twiddle a *KNOWN WORKING* (XP32 had JUST installed
perfectly) system to the point where I could even successfully complete VISTA's
installation, and then I still had patch / driver update / etc. issues once it installed.
So don't be too discouraged, keep working on it. Maybe do a clean install of
XP32 if you want something else to test your system with though that's a lovely
waste of about 2 hours (thanks Microsoft!!), maybe it'll be of diagnostic value for you.
Obviously don't overclock the CPU/Memory etc. while you're installing and debugging.
Try using the "RESET BIOS/CMOS SETTINGS TO FACTORY DEFAULTS" option in
the BIOS and then go back and change only the necessary things, then do your
install / tests.
And firstly, if you haven't done it yet, CHECK FOR A NEW BIOS FOR THE MOTHERBOARD
that's the latest stable one people seem to have good luck with. A lot of BIOS stuff
can be flaky and cause crashes for both VISTA, XP, and LINUX.
Oh yeah if you got fancy RAM, be careful, some of the RAM vendors like OCZ etc.
specify the RAM for a certain SPEED and TIMINGS, but they also specify it
at those "default" speeds FOR A CERTAIN VOLTAGE. Sometimes the required voltage
to achieve even those non-overclocked speeds is higher than the normal DRAM
voltage of 1.8V. Sometimes it's 2.0, 2.1, even 2.2. So if you have such RAM, be sure
the motherboard is giving it the RAM manufacturer specified voltage.
Actually another pet peeve of mine (I have NO idea about ABIT, I've dealt with ASUS
doing this though), some motherboard manufacturers apparently think it's cool to
enable OVERCLOCKING and OVERVOLTING settings for your CPU/RAM/CHIPSET
*AS BIOS DEFAULT*, so needless to say some unlucky people will have perfectly
good hardware that runs great at stock speeds/voltages and then it crashes / flakes
with the stupid BIOS "we're smarter than you are" overclock/overvolt settings.
So unless you can manually CONFIRM you're running at STOCK MHz/multiplier/volts/
timing, go set those MANUALLY to be the correct things.
You could also try disabling ACPI in the BIOS before installing VISTA just to see
if it might be something like that that's making it flake.
BTW I'd install with PS/2 devices. I've had a few different motherboards and
operating systems that LOCK UP when you plug USB devices into certain hub
ports or certain devices in certain combinations even right into the motherboard.
If it's crashing on you, SIMPLIFY, try again.
Uh sometimes there's a difference between PCIE slots too, so make sure the
video card is in the primary slot and well seated.
Because of interrupt sharing stuff etc. sometimes moving a PCI card to a different
slot can help.
Other things to check... Dust bunnies? Dropped screws or jumpers rattling around
the PC? Pinched cables? SATA / IDE drive cables that aren't fully seated or which
are stressed at some angle or folded too tightly?
Did you remember to plug in the 4-pin or 8-pin auxiliary CPU power connector
to the motherboard?
Did you remember to plug in the auxiliary 6-pin power connector to your GPU
card if it needs one?
Did you remember to plug in the SECOND auxiliary "molex" power connector
to the motherboard to give the PCIE cards more power if your MB has one?
Are you using a "FAN ONLY" molex connector from the PSU to power a drive or
something?
Are the fans on your chipset and CPU fan and case / power supply fan SPINNING
or STUCK?
Good luck.
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