XP SP 2 will not install - blue screens during installation

[phicar2]

I just built a new computer using some old parts from a gaming machine I built about 1 year ago and some new parts:

Intel Q9450 (new, obviously)
Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS4 (new)
Zalman 9500 (new)
Crucial CT2KIT25664AA800 2 x 2GB (new ? checked the compatibility with Gigabyte and Crucial and they ?guaranteed? compatibility)
PC P & C Turbo Cool 510 SLI (1 ½ years old ? never had any problems)
WD Caviar SE16 400GB (new)
Samsung SH-S203N (new)
XFX 8800GT (few months old ? never had any problems)
X-Fi Fatal1ty (2 years old ? never had any problems)
Windows XP

First thing I did was run the WD diagnostic tool on the HD ? no errors reported. Then ran memtest86+ overnight Saturday - it ran 10 passes with no errors. BIOS is up to date. I then tried to install XP. XP reformatted the HD and then began installing and I took a look at one point and said it had 32 minutes left or something like that. I didn?t check it again for about ½ hour and when I did there was the BSOD. Since it says if you installed new software that may be a cause (not yet) or if you installed new hardware that may be the cause (well, hell, most of it is new). So, I double checked all connections, reseated the cards etc. and tried it again. Same thing happened. It gets to some random spot in the XP install and then blue screens. Different errors reported on the blue screens.

So now I am trying to pinpoint the error. One of the next things I tried was installing on an old hard drive that I knew worked. It is an old first gen SATA hitachi, 125GB. Well, installed just fine. So I installed Prime95 and ran 4 instances, 1 per core, overnight ? no issues and no heat problems. So I then figure everything is OK with the CPU. So, I think I have it narrowed down to hard drive, mobo, or something else completely random.

One other item worth noting I think: my PSU only has a 2x2 12V connector for the CPU, but the mobo says that only an extreme edition (130W) intel CPU needs an 2x4 12V. There is a cap on the half of the plug so I know I didn?t mess the insertion up. But, could this CPU need that much juice? I'm not running multiple hard drives or vid cards so I can't imagine I am anywhere close to max power. And, as I mentioned, I know this is a working PSU. Also, it doesn;t explain why everything works with the old hard drive. I would think any power issue would have surfaced while running Prime for 8+ hours.

Other than that I am stumped ? memory seems OK, CPU seems fine, I know the PSU, vid card and XFi are fine because they were working great in the old system (or I guess they could just have randomly failed as well). No overheating issues, and I?m not overclocking so, I guess could be a mobo issue which of course I can?t validate beyond process of elimination ? but without actually trying a different vid card, PSU and sound card I can?t fore sure say I tried everything.

Anyway, I decided to RMA the hard drive. I got a new one and tried it and same result - BSOD during install (tried the new one twice). So, I bought a Seagate 7200.11 500GB drive and tried it. Same result, blue screen during windows install. Just to be sure I removed my Xfi, but still BSOD on install. So I tried my old hitachi hard drive one more time just to see if it was luck that it worked but sure enough no problem installing XP.

So, I am in need of some help/advice. Any ideas? i was going to try and slipstream SP3 and try that. My other thoughts were to set the Seagate at 1.5GB (jumper setting) instead of 3GB and try a different SATA port. Last thought was to try and use the RAID setting for the hard drive and use the F6 during install to use the RAID drivers but still use just the one hard drive.

Beyond that I could buy a new PSU that has an 8pin or try and RMA the mobo, but neither of those really eplains why it would work with the hitachi hard drive...

 

[Mr Fox]

Originally posted by: phicar2
I just built a new computer using some old parts from a gaming machine I built about 1 year ago and some new parts:

Intel Q9450 (new, obviously)
Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS4 (new)
Zalman 9500 (new)
Crucial CT2KIT25664AA800 2 x 2GB (new ? checked the compatibility with Gigabyte and Crucial and they ?guaranteed? compatibility)
PC P & C Turbo Cool 510 SLI (1 ½ years old ? never had any problems)
WD Caviar SE16 400GB (new)
Samsung SH-S203N (new)
XFX 8800GT (few months old ? never had any problems)
X-Fi Fatal1ty (2 years old ? never had any problems)
Windows XP

First thing I did was run the WD diagnostic tool on the HD ? no errors reported. Then ran memtest86+ overnight Saturday - it ran 10 passes with no errors. BIOS is up to date. I then tried to install XP. XP reformatted the HD and then began installing and I took a look at one point and said it had 32 minutes left or something like that. I didn?t check it again for about ½ hour and when I did there was the BSOD. Since it says if you installed new software that may be a cause (not yet) or if you installed new hardware that may be the cause (well, hell, most of it is new). So, I double checked all connections, reseated the cards etc. and tried it again. Same thing happened. It gets to some random spot in the XP install and then blue screens. Different errors reported on the blue screens.

So now I am trying to pinpoint the error. One of the next things I tried was installing on an old hard drive that I knew worked. It is an old first gen SATA hitachi, 125GB. Well, installed just fine. So I installed Prime95 and ran 4 instances, 1 per core, overnight ? no issues and no heat problems. So I then figure everything is OK with the CPU. So, I think I have it narrowed down to hard drive, mobo, or something else completely random.

One other item worth noting I think: my PSU only has a 2x2 12V connector for the CPU, but the mobo says that only an extreme edition (130W) intel CPU needs an 2x4 12V. There is a cap on the half of the plug so I know I didn?t mess the insertion up. But, could this CPU need that much juice? I'm not running multiple hard drives or vid cards so I can't imagine I am anywhere close to max power. And, as I mentioned, I know this is a working PSU. Also, it doesn;t explain why everything works with the old hard drive. I would think any power issue would have surfaced while running Prime for 8+ hours.

Other than that I am stumped ? memory seems OK, CPU seems fine, I know the PSU, vid card and XFi are fine because they were working great in the old system (or I guess they could just have randomly failed as well). No overheating issues, and I?m not overclocking so, I guess could be a mobo issue which of course I can?t validate beyond process of elimination ? but without actually trying a different vid card, PSU and sound card I can?t fore sure say I tried everything.

Anyway, I decided to RMA the hard drive. I got a new one and tried it and same result - BSOD during install (tried the new one twice). So, I bought a Seagate 7200.11 500GB drive and tried it. Same result, blue screen during windows install. Just to be sure I removed my Xfi, but still BSOD on install. So I tried my old hitachi hard drive one more time just to see if it was luck that it worked but sure enough no problem installing XP.

So, I am in need of some help/advice. Any ideas? i was going to try and slipstream SP3 and try that. My other thoughts were to set the Seagate at 1.5GB (jumper setting) instead of 3GB and try a different SATA port. Last thought was to try and use the RAID setting for the hard drive and use the F6 during install to use the RAID drivers but still use just the one hard drive.

Beyond that I could buy a new PSU that has an 8pin or try and RMA the mobo, but neither of those really eplains why it would work with the hitachi hard drive...

Remove One Stick of Memory Until you get windows installed. Then Replace.

Should cure the issue

 

[phicar2]

Originally posted by: Mr Fox

Remove One Stick of Memory Until you get windows installed. Then Replace.

Should cure the issue

Really, that is it? Why does this cause this problem? Any reason why the install worked with the old hard drive and not the new ones?

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: Mr Fox
Remove One Stick of Memory Until you get windows installed. Then Replace.

Should cure the issue

That's only to fix the Vista install memory bug issue. He's installing XP, there's no issue with memory when installing XP.

 

[kwantam]

Your motherboard has a JMicron PATA/SATA controller supplementing the southbridge. Are you plugging your HDD into one of the southbridge's ports, or into the JMicron? I have heard (though never personally experienced) that the JMicron controllers are absolute crap and can cause issues like this.

You should not need the 8-pin power connector for your processor AFAIK.

 

[Mr Fox]

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry

Originally posted by: Mr Fox
Remove One Stick of Memory Until you get windows installed. Then Replace.

Should cure the issue

That's only to fix the Vista install memory bug issue. He's installing XP, there's no issue with memory when installing XP.

Without having an understanding where he has populated his memory, removing the one stick will allow stability so that he can at least install the O/S.

Also most MOBO"s are designed with a "Master Slot" that will allow post, and boot with damn near any RAM.

One thing at at a time.... yes his memory voltage is probably low...

Most older memory controllers are not designed for the High Density DIMMS.

P35 is about a two year old design now. Just about one year in Production.

 

[phicar2]

Thanks for the feedback. I have 2 x 2GB sticks, in slots 1 and 3 per documentation for dual channel. They are confirmed by crucial and gigabyte to work - not that that means anything Also, as I mentioned memtest running for 12+ hours and no errors - again not that that means anything but for what it is worth ;-)

I am definitely NOT using the JMicron SATA ports, I am definitely using the south bridge ports.

As for the memory voltage, it is default which matches the default speed of the memory - I made SURE of this when I purchased the memory as I didn't want to increase the memory voltage.

All that said, I will at least try to install with just one stick in and see if that makes a difference

Any other ideas?

 

[kwantam]

Can you disable the JMicron entirely?

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: Mr Fox
Without having an understanding where he has populated his memory, removing the one stick will allow stability so that he can at least install the O/S.

Also most MOBO"s are designed with a "Master Slot" that will allow post, and boot with damn near any RAM.

One thing at at a time.... yes his memory voltage is probably low...

Most older memory controllers are not designed for the High Density DIMMS.

P35 is about a two year old design now. Just about one year in Production.

Rubbish!

 

[AmberClad]

Originally posted by: Mr Fox
Most older memory controllers are not designed for the High Density DIMMS.

P35 is about a two year old design now. Just about one year in Production.

Eh?? I had no issues whatsoever installing Vista with a 2x2GB + 2x1GB configuration on a 965 chipset. And P35 is much newer than that. I'm not sure where you're getting all this from.

 

[Mr Fox]

Originally posted by: AmberClad

Originally posted by: Mr Fox
Most older memory controllers are not designed for the High Density DIMMS.

P35 is about a two year old design now. Just about one year in Production.

Eh?? I had no issues whatsoever installing Vista with a 2x2GB + 2x1GB configuration on a 965 chipset. And P35 is much newer than that. I'm not sure where you're getting all this from.

I did not say that it would not run.... Simply that they were not designed for the higher density DIMMS as they simply did not exist until last year.

 

[Jessica69]

Exactly what is the "high density ram" that didn't exist until last year you're speaking of? It surely isn't 512 Megabit-based 2 Gigabyte DDR2 RAM....that was introduced in 2004 by Elpida, among others. Of course, it was registered RAM then, but unbuffered quickly followed in 2005 in the same density.

Is it RAM based on 80nm IC's? Those were released in 2005, again by Elpida. Or maybe you mean 1-Gigabit and 512-Megabit DDR2 SDRAMs using 70-nanometer process technology? Again, Elpida released that a year and a half ago....Dec. 2006.

Just curious....esp. since the P35 chipset, just released last June, certainly can handle any sort of high density RAM you'd care to throw at it.....least my Asus P35 motherboard has no problems with 2GB "high density" Mushkin Redlines.......for 8GB total with all slots filled.....and loaded both XP and Vista with all the slots filled.

 

[Team42]

+1 here.

I installed XP 64 edition with 4x 1Gb sticks of Corsair PC2-6400 without a single problem a year ago on a Gigabyte P35 board. I doubt very much the memory is a problem.

For what it's worth, I've been advised to install the OS with as few internal connections as possible. Adding hardware, etc after the OS is installed is, from what I've been told (but, admittedly, without empirical evidence) the least problematic approach.

So, try installing the OS with a single HDD, using onboard graphics and sound, if available, and no sexy add-ons.

Is it possible that the version of XP you are trying to install is registered to a different CPU/Mobo? Just a guess.

T42

 

[superunknown98]

Won't intel boards do this unless you turn off AHCI or NCQ in the bios? And the reason the older drive didn't have the same problem is because it does not support those features? I could be wrong but I hear about this quite alot.

 

[PieIsAwesome]

I had a problem that seemed like what you described. It was an issue with the motherboard, making an XP SP2 slipstreamed disc and installing with that solved the problem.

 

[PieIsAwesome]

I'm interested to know if my suggestion worked.