QX6700 in Vista hangs. Wont Boot or Install?

[ThomasD650]

I have put together a new computer with the following components.

ABIT AW9D-MAX
Pentium 840D EE (from my last system)
4 x 1MB Geil DDR2 PC5300
ATI Radeon 1800 - PCI-E
ATI Radeon 1650 - PCI-E
WD Raptor 150GB

Running Windows Vista Ultimate 32Bit, set up about 10 days ago, everything running fine, no problems.

Attempt to replace 840D with the Quad Core QX6700 (AW9D-MAX has latest version of Bios 1.3 which claims to support it).

Bios reads it correctly, but it wont boot into Vista, just freezes at the screen with the green bars. It will boot into Safe mode, and let me play around with out incident.

If I boot off the Vista DVD, I get the same result, it will not complete setup, just freezes, usually at the green bar screen, sometimes a little father in.

I pulled the HD and put in one with XP on it, it would not boot either, just kept cycling, again making it to the green bar screen and then acting as if I hit the reset button.

If I put the 840D back in, all is well again....

Any Ideas????

 

[WR]

Have you updated to BIOS version 1.3, released last December? It contains quad-core support.

http://www.abit-usa.com/products/mb/bios.php?categories=1&model=326

 

[billystringer]

Yes, first course of action is always to make sure your bios is up to date, especially since you know the hardware is stable with your 840EE. If that doesn't work you could try disabling multiple cores in the bios, but I'm pretty sure that will fix your problem. Good luck!

-The String

 

[dragonsprayer]

maybe the new bios is running things different - try default and retune your settlings

its your ram - try boosting the Vmem or lower the latencys

 

[pmt411]

My sympathies to you, my friend. I have a Q6700 system, SLI 8800gtx and all was bless with windows XP. Alas, never quite satisfied, I succumbed to the lure of the Vista Hype and upgraded to Vista Ultimate just like you. Now, at least 35% of my programs wont work. Some of which are the games that come with Vista in the game section for expample (chess for instance) and I get constant crashes, and of course no SLI. I check several sites like Guru3D everyday in the hope that new and improved drivers will appear magically(and one day they will). I am sure it is the fubar drivers that are causing our problems and will disappear, hopefully in the near future with better released drivers. (it should be noted that my previous driver worked fine with the chess program for instance, but 100.65 crashes if you try to run it. Obviously every new driver is not necessarily a step forward!! Time only, I think will cure this headache for us!!) Good luck and hang in there!

 

[Wgfalcon]

were you oc'ing your old proc?
if you can boot to safe mode it's most likely a driver issue
i would remove the second vid card reset bios to default and try to do a clean install

 

[ThomasD650]

The first thing I did when after putting the system together was upgrade the Bios to 1.3, it has been running that with the 840EE since I built it.

I have tried removing the second video card, and some of the additional Hard Drives, but it has not helped.

I have found several other people with the similiar problem on other boards, where the vista install hangs, all while using the qx6700, but they seem to be corrected by upping their bios.

The ABIT forums have been down for the last couple days, although I have gone into thier FTP site, and there are no betas available for my board.

Memory? What would be the problem with that? I was planning on jumping to the 800 from the 667.

I was not overclocking the 840EE, so the bios settings were all on Auto.

I suppose I could try and rebuilt the system, starting with just one video card, half the memory, single hard drive to see if it works, but wont I end up in the same place once I add the rest of the hardware??

Any possibility the QX6700 CPU is bad? I have about a week to go on the 30 day replacement warranty from where I bought it.

Thanks for the answers, keep em coming...

 

[pmt411]

It isnt your cpu, otherwise you couldnt run in safe mode. It is the drivers and the fact that proper support for Q6700 hasnt been implemented yet. I am sure the Q6700 is not getting the same support as the other chips(not as many sold). Although it will in time.

 

[ThomasD650]

Still cant get it going... any more ideas? :?:

 

[Grimmy]

It's been awhile since I've done XP install, so forgive me, if things have changed on the Vista install. I'm just not aware how automated it may be. MS like to change stuff that we all have to get used to.

When you do a Vista install, does it ask if you have 3rd party drivers? Or does it hang before that?

Just wonder if it can help if you give what ever drivers by Abit, rather having vista install generic MB drivers.

Also wonder what drivers you've installed from their site:

AW9D-Max drivers

Seems quite abit of drivers to load.

 

[takedown]

I’m having the same problem with aw9d-max and qx6700, after a long search i disabled 2 of the 4 cores and was able to boot and run vista, once vista was running i enabled the third core booted and no problems then i tried the 4th core and vista hangs

Now I was wondering if it could be possible that my psu is not powerful enough or if the problem is caused by something else.

I currently have a 400W psu, next week I’m going to test a 500W

 

[ThomasD650]

Ok, ABIT has released BIOS update 14 for this motherboard AW9D-Max. It specifically addresses this issue of the VIsta hang on install with the Kentsfield chip. I have been using the beta version of this for a few days now without incident.

Here is the URL of the Final release.

Bios Revision 14

I will try the final out shortly myself.

Enjoy.