Faulty GA-M57SLI-S4?

Recently I purchased all-new components for a new computer:
an Antec nine hundred case
Gigabyte GA-M57SLI-S4
4 sticks of DDR2 800
AMD 5000+ Black with Zalman cooler
550W Rosewill PSU
an eVGA 8800GT SSC
(hard drives pulled from an older, working case)

I've had slight problems with it since the beginning - it would freeze up when trying to install Vista. I did some basic testing and thought it was two sticks of the memory. After pulling two sticks, Vista installed fine. After a few days of good performance (other than some expected Vista BSoDs), the computer has gotten quite finicky. When I turn it on, sometimes the vidcard won't engage (the fan spins at full speed for about 3 seconds and then slows down to 29% default when it works. If it freezes, it just stays at 100% and never gives output to monitor). Provided the vidcard DOES work, it will sometimes freeze when testing memory, and then again when scanning HDs. If it makes it past these things, it might freeze at the Vista loading screen, or BSoD as soon as I actually see the Vista desktop. Then there's always the off chance that it'll just die while I'm actually using it. I'm dual-booting XP and it does the same, although slightly less often.

It's obvious (at least it seems to me) that something in my box is faulty. Due to the timing of the errors, I'm guessing it's the mobo. Can anyone help? Thanks in advance!

Crlaozwyn

I've got 3 HDs (1 with vista and another with xp). I've booted it with just each of the OS's and still had freezes. On reading my description, it makes it sound unusable... Once I get it up and running, it might work for 7 or 8 hours before it freezes/crashes. And if it doesn't boot right, I usually just have to let it sit for 15 minutes or so, and then it might work. I did reseat the mobo to make sure that all the insulation-ring-things were properly placed, and they definitely are. Still doesn't fix the problem... and the machine is also much more likely to lock-up when it's under load.

Madness!
The really annoying thing for me, is that the board I ordered and received yesterday is one of these and I can't get it to boot either!
I just a black screen and nothing else....
Guess I'll try pulling the RAM tonight!

I'd pretty much narrowed the problem down to CPU or mobo until someone pointed out it could be a PSU problem...
I hadn't really thought about that as all fans etc. come on switch, but I do think that might be my problem...
I'm going to be able to pick up my old PSU over the weekend so I'm going to try that and see.
Damned annoying anyway, as my machine has been dead for over a week now

Both hard drives and memory check out fine... I don't know of a way to test the PSU, but the computer has worked perfectly since switching the slots for memory. It looks like I'll be RMAing this mobo unless someone knows of a way to test the PSU or other ideas...

Any chance these problems could be CPU related? Any way to test the CPU (or does it basically not boot if you have a bad CPU)?

Memory was fine before, it booted on looser settings and lower voltage fine.
I tightened them and upped the voltage a long time ago, so no problem there.

I guess the problems could be CPU related... but the fact my old system wouldn't boot with the new PSU, to me indicates PSU. I have a new one coming in a couple of days so I'll try again then.
Hope that if the PSU was faulty it didn't fry the replacement mobo either
That will be a major pain in the ass, because I'll have no PC until mid Jan I'd imagine!

Well I should get my PSU tomorrow so I'll test tomorrow evening (i'm in the UK) and post m results following.
Will be a royal pain in the arse if it has screwed the mobo, because that pretty much means my PC will not be a PC until mid-jan I'd have thought, at best!
I'm trying to buy a Powerbook 12" for an everyday thing and keep my PC for gaming

I tried my new PSU just now and NOTHING!!
Still getting no display on boot and nothing else.
I cleared CMOS and pulled everything except CPU, still no boot.
Point at faulty CPU?
I have posted another thread in the CPU forums...
I am well and truly pissed off and ready to throw my PC out of the window!!

it sounds like your ram to me try new ones or borrow some from a friend sounds like your getting alot of ram dumps. might be the cpu as well i'm not a comp expert.

What kind of new PSU did you try? The Rosewill PSU's are pieces of ****. If you have one that works you're sitting on a bomb, that will probably take your pc with it when it goes. You should get something well known like an Antec, Cooler master, Thermaltake, Seasonic, Xclio, Corsiar, and others. If I were you I would buy a well known high quality PSU and then see how your pc works.

Hey guys! It seems like I found the right place. Unfortunately, I don't have any answers either.

I just built a new system with AMD 5200+, GA-M57SLI-S4, 2x1GB DDR2 800 from A-Data, XFX Geoforce 8600GT and an Antec Sonata III case with 500W power supply. I have not modified any default BIOS settings. All are set to auto.

I can install 32-bit Vista successfully, but then as I work on the system, I experience random lockups, requiring hard reboot. When I do this, the disk gets corrupted, and if I do enough chkdsks, eventually it wont restart at all and then I must reinstall Windows. The lockups seem to occur when I start multitasking.

So, when it first started happening, I RMA'd both the mobo and processor back to Newegg. I received the replacements for both and the exact same thing happens. I can successfully run memtest and prime95 without any errors.

So, I took out the new DDR2 800 ram and put back DDR2 533. Same problem. I took out the new XFX graphics board for my old ATI Radeon X850. Same problem.

Basically, the only constant through all this is the power supply. The PS came with the Antec case. It is an Earthwatts 500 watt power supply. Here are the readings from Speedfan. Perhaps someone can assist with this, because I don't know what to make of it:

vcore1: 1.1v
vcore2: 1.92v
+3.3v: 3.25v
+5v: 4.89v
+12v: 12.29v
-12v: -16.72v
-5v: -8.78v
vbat: 3.07

The -12 and -5 look way off, but I don't know much about this. If it's not the PS, then could it be the chipset drivers with Vista?

Any direction would be greatly appreciated. I'm about to RMA the mobo and processor again. This time for Intel.

Thanks.

I'm having problems with a new build PC with this mobo in too. Crashes, non-boots and the like. It seems that the only constant throughout all these posts is the same mobo - some suggestions about memory and power supplies, but different ones in each case. Thinking about ditching the mobo and getting an entirely different one...and keeping my fingers crossed that this solves the problem.

I am not well-versed on nVidia chipset MOBO's, but this souds like a memory problem to me, too. It CAN degrade over time, and, at least with the Intel chipset boards, running 4x1G RAM is actually more difficult than running 4x2G, and takes considerably more 'fiddling'; my advice is to run MemTest86+ on each stick, one at a time, at least overnight, and see what transpires...

sorrry I mean PC2 6400