Need expert help with? BIOS, Vista or still not sure...

[Gr8Timz]

Current problem- Vista loads in safe mode. Vista stops loading in between the scrolling bar and the round vista logo. It does not make it to the startup sound. Can only run comp with 2GB or RAM.

History- I NOOB built my system listed in my signature around July 2008. Noting but problems...BSOD, restarts, driver issues as expected, etc etc.

In last month have upgraded BIOS, drivers, etc. I read many posts and decided to pull out one of my 2 GB memory sticks.....WOW comp runs flawlessly....programs are smooth, no BSOD, no restarts, no freezes....

This week I read a post from TweakTown entitled 'Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3R and memory'. It talked about tweaking the BIOS to work with 4gb of RAM and the components were almost identical to mine. I tried some of the BIOS settings and everything went down the tubes.

I could not get the comp to load, it would not load in safe mode... some of my errors were;

BSOD's.....

*** STOP: 0x0000007E (0xFFFFFFFFC0000005, 0xFFFFFA6001A08E7B, 0xFFFFFA60021969B8, 0xFFFFFA6002196390)

*** NTFS.SYS-Address FFFFFA6001A08E7B BASE AT FFFFFA6001A00000, DATE STAMP 479190d1

MODIFICATION OF SYSTEM CODE OR A CRITICAL DATA STRUCTURE WAS DETECTED
xxx STOP 0x00000109 (0xA3A039D89414256C, 0x0000000000000000, 0x2123FCD983DF2A1E, 0x0000000000000101)

I tried to repair Vista and got the following;

A few errors at the black screen with white letters when you usually choose safe mode etc...

FILE\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\WINLOAD.EXE
STATUS 0xc000000f

FILE\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\WINLOAD.EXE
STATUS 0xc0000011

After 3 tries I was able to load Vista again on my primary hard drive but safe mode works only .....

I have cleared the CMOS and have reset all choices back to the defaults. I have loaded all the Vista updates. I have adjusted the voltage and timings for the memory.

Any help or a push in the right direction would be appreciated......

 

[notherdude]

For clarification: it was working fine with 2 gig but it was not stable with four but now it won't even work with 2 except in safe mode - is that right?
Or is it still working with 2 gig?

 

[Gr8Timz]

That is correct. It will not even load into Vista with only 2 GB. I have only 2GB in itnow and trying to get it up and running before I tackle the 4 GB issue again...

 

[notherdude]

First thing I would do is run memtest86 on each stick of ram individually and then on the two gig together that were working. I'd double check that memory is running at mfg spec voltage and timings before testing. If you can't make it fail memtest then that would let mosy of the hardware off the hook, probably. After that it could be a drive issue or something in software but you should only cross that bridge after testing the memory alone. The memtest will also be a motherboard test as well.

 

[N1T15H]

hello ...

sorry to revive a dead man ... am having quite same problem. ...

the issue: i previously had 2 X 1GB ddr667 mem sticks. vista was loading fine. now, i just got additional 2 X 2 gigs ddr800.

i have an m2n4-sli asus mobo --> 4 slots for ram. i tried removing all ram, and started with dual channel using 2 X 2gb ram. vista32 loads ok. but on adding another dual channel with the other 2 X 1 gb , vista stucks on scrolling window. on trying in safe mode, it loads fine though, with all 6 gigs in total. ...

is there any advice in this issue, please

thanks..


Nitish/.
nitishram@gmail.com