help... lockups and blue screens during first vista install

[adsmith82]

I just put this system together with a P6N Platinum I am getting random errors when trying to install vista. I have a couple of screenshots of errors. These are the two I have snapshots of:



A problem has been detected and Windows has been shut down to prevent damage
to your computer.

If this is the first time you've seen this Stop error screen,
restart your computer. If this screen appears again, follow
these steps:

Check to be sure you have adequate disk space. If a driver is
identified in the Stop message, disable the driver or check
with the manufacturer for driver updates. Try changing video
adapters.

Check with your hardware vendor for any BIOS updates. Disable
BIOS memory options such as caching or shadowing. If you need
to use Safe Mode to remove or disable components, restart your
computer, press F8 to select Advanced Startup Options, and then
select Safe Mode.

Technical information:

*** STOP: 0x0000007E (0xFFFFFFFFC0000005, blah blah blah...)



AND



Windows has encountered a problem communicating with a device connected to your
computer.

This error can be caused by unplugging a removable storage device such as an
external USB drive while the device is in use, or by faulty hardware such as a
hard drive or CD-ROM drive that is failing. Make sure any removable storage is
properly connected and then restart your computer.

If you continue to receive this error message, contact the hardware
manufacturer.

Status: 0xc00000e9

Info: An unexpected I/O error has occurred.



There have been a couple other blue screens but I didn't get snapshots of those. Once it stopped while it was trying to copy files from the vista disc to the hard drive for installation. After being stuck at 4% for quite a while, it said it could not continue and to try again. What could be wrong?

 

[cprince]

Bad installation media, maybe???

 

[winr]

I had the same thing happen last year, it was a bad stick of DDR.


I have the same thing now.

It is an AM2 mobo, 4400+ X2 cpu, DDR 2.

I hooked a hard drive up wit an existing install of XP PRO, had to activate it again and installed drivers.

Task manager, cpuz, amd cpu info and Rosetta all showed only one core.
Tried installing AMD driver, still no dice.

Frys swapped the cpu after testing it and saying it was bad, took it home and still get the messages while trying to load XP PRO.

I have tried 3 hard drives, 2 power supplys, new cables, different DDR 2, same thing.
EDIT: 3 different CDRWs, 2 XP PRO install disks.

All of the components I used to test the mobo and cpu are good.

I am going to exchange the mobo Saturday, I will update tomorrow.

 

[adsmith82]

I got Vista installed, but scored a 1.0 on the performance rating. It seemed to take a long time to install the OS. Now that I am using it, I can hear the hard drive. It seems louder than it should be. Things are running slowly. I think it may be the hard drive. It is a 150gb raptor. Is there software I can use to test the drive?

 

[cprince]

The scored of 1.0 is most likely caused by a missing driver. My system initially scored a 1.0 before I installed the graphic card driver. Now it's 5.6. Go to www.westerndigital.com and download the diagnostic tool.

 

[lopri]

Raptor is loud to begin with and yes you will hear more hard disk noise with Vista due to its aggressive pre-fetching mechanism. It's one of the biggest drawbacks of SuperFetch (which is unavoidable). Are you doing RAID? Also, if note the Vista will only install normally with 4KB cluster size, whether RAID or not. I wanted to install Vista on 16KB cluster and 64KB stripe RAID0 and learned that it's not possible. (BSOD) Anyway, like cprince says, your score (1.0) is most likely a result of missing drivers. It'd be easier to help resolving your problem if you give us more details on your system configuration.

 

[adsmith82]

well... it takes 4.5 minutes to boot vista from the time vista takes control of the system to the time the desktop shows up... no other software is really on it. It passed both the quick and extended tests from WD diagnostics tool. I'm going to try another drive in the system to see if it is really the drive's fault. I'll try the raptor in a different system also. Not sure what else to do.

 

[adsmith82]

I took out the ram and tested them one stick at a time. The system performs fine with one stick in. I have read some things saying that some boards have a problem using 4 gigs... or 4 sticks or something... at least I have the problem narrowed down. I will have to try bios update and contact msi if that doesn't fix it. Respond if you have a link to a thread on the issue or more information. Otherwise, thanks for your responses

 

[terentenet]

adsmith, are you using 4Gb of RAM? If so, download this update. KB929777
Also, make sure to have all your drivers installed. Motherboard, SATA/RAID, Video Card, Sound Card... etc. ALL

lopri, not necesarily true. Vista will install on other cluster sizes as well. Mine installed with no problems related to cluster size and I'm on RAID0 with 32KB.

 

[lopri]

Is your 32KB cluster RAID the boot volume? If so, do you use a 3rd party RAID card? I'm curious because I thought I read an KB article that explains that Vista will only install on default cluster size.

 

[adsmith82]

problem was with bios... had to install the new beta... apparently there are two beta bios versions that fix this: 1.22 and 1.32 (there are copies of 1.22 bios that do not fix the problem) There was a big long thread on msi forums about this and they even made a program to create a bootable flash drive to do the bios update (i don't have a floppy drive)
anyway... it's working now, have to plug in front panel audio connectors, reinstall vista, do some default setup benchmarking and heat readings etc and then OVERCLOCK : )

 

[terentenet]

Originally posted by: lopri
Is your 32KB cluster RAID the boot volume? If so, do you use a 3rd party RAID card? I'm curious because I thought I read an KB article that explains that Vista will only install on default cluster size.

I have 2 RAID0 arrays. Both have 32KB cluster size. The RAID controller is on-board... so, 680i. It's not the 1st Vista install either. I've installed both Vista 32 Ultimate and Vista x64 Ultimate.
I've had some problems with Vista x64 Ultimate due to having 4Gb RAM, but it's been worked out.

Anyways, for the RAID gurus; what's a good cluster size? how do you judge that a decide what size fits you better? If I recall correctly, I never selected a cluster size. Out of curiosity, when you said that about 4KB cluster size, I rebooted and entered the RAID manager at startup. Hit details for both arrays and looked for the cluster size.