BSOD hell on new system... help

[robisbell]

might, might not. if it checks out clean and says there no errors anywhere on the drive. I'd strip the system down to just the processor, hdd, 1 optical drive, 1 stick of ram, and video card and slowly add the other components till it errors.

 

[Thanearchon]

Jeez, that IS the whole system, except for the 3 other sticks of ram. Just a basic gaming rig. Everything else is onboard. And I had tried running it with one stick of ram to no avail. Hard drive surface scan is at 89% finished, but if it checks out clean, I'll swap the SATA cables, do a low-level reformat, and reinstall Vista. If that fails, I'll be talking to MSI about an RMA for the mainboard.

I'll open this to the admiring crowd as well..... other suggestions? Any way this could be the graphics card? Any way to test that? Power supply instability?

Thanks,
thanearchon

 

[robisbell]

if you have a multimeter you can use it to check the voltages, and as for the video card you can use PC Wizard or aquamark3d.

but the tried and true method is to strip it down and slowly add the parts back till it errors out, any good tech does that.

 

[Thanearchon]

Well, there's nothing else to strip out. HDD test is complete, no errors. I'll start from scratch with a low-level format and see what happens. (I do have a multimeter but I moved a few weeks ago and it's in a box somewhere).

Thanks,
Thanearchon

 

[robisbell]

I'd you only have 1 GB stick of ram in, no pciex card install no cards in any of the pci slots? only the hdd and dvd drive connected?

 

[vanvock]

Have you checked BIOS? Look at temps & volts there to see if anything looks too hot or out of spec or fluctuating. Verify cpu, ram & chipset volts, maybe it misread spd. Make sure cpu & ram settings are @ stock. Disable anything you're not using like on board sound,serial port, extra lan, video & BIOS shadowing etc. Get the mb manual & go through each item to see if anything looks awry.

Get a can of compressed air & blow out the ram & pci slots.

 

[vanvock]

You need to check compatability of any hardware or drivers that you installed with Vista. What other app's did you install besides the game?

 

[Thanearchon]

Well, I believe I can simplify things a bit for you folks. I did a low-level format of hard drive last night and just now started working on the thing again. The RMA'd Dell monitor arrived and thankfully works this time. (Even better, when you tilt it, you don't hear little pieces rattling around).

So I started to install Vista. It crashed during the initial load-in, before it even got to the point where I put in the key or reboot the first time. The only installed cards are the memory DIMMs (which all passed) and the GPU.

So now I'm trying to install my old XP install CD (could I have gotten a bad VISTA CD??) I almost hopes this doesn't work because I wanted to get into Vista. (Also, XP is formatting my 500Gb drive to 131 Gb - hope I can fix that)

If this crashes and burns I'll pull the GPU and use it in a different PCI-E slot (shouldn't matter, right)? Then I guess it'll be start talking to MSI technical support and see if they have any ideas. I guess I could pull the GPU out of the working computer and try that, but then they'll both be down.

Thanearchon

 

[Thanearchon]

So far I have rebooted several times during the XP installation.... nary a hint of a problem..... hmmmm......

 

[robisbell]

and you are absolutely sure the motherboard bios has the latest non beta update flashed to it?
maybe your hardware is not compatible with Vista 64 bit somewhere.

 

[vanvock]

Originally posted by: robisbell
and you are absolutely sure the motherboard bios has the latest non beta update flashed to it?
<maybe your hardware is not compatible with Vista 64 bit somewhere.

That's the next likley culprit. Those errors can be caused by most anything, if not memory then drivers seem to be next & then hardware.

 

[Thanearchon]

yeah, I checked.. the bios is the current version. It's one of the reasons I went with a 6 month old mainboard... figured the kinks would be worked out.

I've gotten most of the drivers installed and I'm getting service pack two going. I'll try this for a few days and drop a line to MSI. I was planning on getting a second hard drive anyway, so I'll get that and see if I can set up a stable vista system on it.

BTW... how do I get XP to recognize that my drive is 500 gb and not 130???

Thanearchon

 

[robisbell]

There's two limits to have to overcome with large HDDs, one is having support in the BIOS for 48-bit LBA/Logical Block Addressing of HDDs over 137GB and the other is that WinXP needs SP2 to have support for 48-bit LBA after the BIOS has it.

also, you have to fully remove any and all partitions, and info, including the ones Vista created.

http://www.48bitlba.com/hdinfo.htm

 

[Thanearchon]

Well, this bios recognizes it and now I've gone to SP2 and it's still listed as the same size. (137 gb) Is there anyway to force Windows to take another look at the drive now that SP2 is installed or did I screw myself by letting the installer format the 137 gb partition to NTFS?

Thanearchon

 

[robisbell]

the site I linked can help.

I would double check your buos to make sure if there is an option for 48bit enabling.
I know I had one that saw the drive but limited the formatted size.

I'd also make absolutely certain all vista partitioning info is gone from the drive.

 

[Thanearchon]

Thank you, that site was very helpful.

Downloaded a demo version of partition magic which recognized the unallocated section of the hardrive but wouldn't partition it because "this is an evaluation copy." The actual software is $69!!! That's half the cost of the damn drive. Anyone other shareware or cheaper partition software out there that won't trash the data already on the drive?

 

[robisbell]

you can partition with the XP cd, or UBCD.

 

[Thanearchon]

I'm am happy to announce that I am reporting to you all live from the new machine. Four hours with no hint of instability. I shall attempt to partition using the UBCD.

Should I suddenly become engulfed in smoke and flame in the next several days I will report back but for now I would like to report this ticket closed.

Special thanks to robisbell and vanvock for their patient handholding. I'll let you all know next time I try to bang my head against... er... that is... get Vista running.

Triumphant waves,
Thanearchon

 

[vanvock]

Good luck, I wish I could have been more help. I do think you should check that your board has the latest chipset drivers before another Vista install.

PS> GParted is a great free utility for disk partitioning, re-sizing.

 

[robisbell]

I'll be here when you do, I'd rerun the vista compatibility check and make sure the bios is the latest before you even try. if you run the check, let us know what it says for your system.