Hello people,

I have a serious issue here. Vista Ultimate x64 keeps crashing everytime I switch on my computer, sometimes even during boot-up (before logon). My specs are as follows:

Asus Striker II Formula (nVidia nForce 780i) with Supreme FX audio
Silverstone TJ10 ESA Edition
Thermaltake Toughpower 1500W power supply
Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650 3.00 GHz; with Thermalright IFX-14 heatsink + 1600 rpm 12cm fan
Corsair Dominator PC2-8500 (1066MHz); 4 x 2GB (total 8GB)
Samsung Spinpoint F1 32MB SATA HDD 750GB + 1TB
EVGA nVidia Geforce 9800GX2 SSC Edition
Windows Vista Ultimate x64 with SP1

The computer was built 3 weeks ago, but only last week I got it running under Vista. The first day went really well, then it starts to show lockups while surfing the internet, even while downloading files. Even in the first few days the system refuse to reboot after crash, and BSOD a few times, until a friend of mine tried to sorted the issue by dual-booting with Ubuntu 8.10 into 2nd HDD (1TB).

I did notice the NB & SB temps went to 67 C (NB) and 60 C (SB) in the BIOS. I did not do any overclocking because I have zero knowledge on how to overclock. However, now I saw that the CPU went to 3.17GHz without any overclocking.

I searched through the internet and found 3 reasons:

1. Motherboard northbridge / southbridge overheating issue + 9800GX2 overheating
2. Bad RAM / Bad CPU / Bad motheboard / Bad HDD
3. RAM incompatibility with the whole system, since I installed 8GB total. Most likely requires optimization through overclocking

I tried using Windows memory diagnostic tool to check for memory issue 2 days ago but it went without any problem. I saw that both HDDs function properly (no bad sector etc.) and definitely CPU is working properly.

Is there any other reasons for this issue? If it's due to overheating issue, how can I reduce the temps? If the RAM / system needs adjustments then how to do it? I really don't know the solution here. Please help.

Ram needs more voltage!

A thought just came to my mind, they should make a sticky of troubleshooting measures (like what do do if your sstem does something like this)

anyway, unless it's deathly hot where you live you shouldn't have any problems with heating, unless you seated the IFX-14 incorrectly. Also how good is the airflow in your case, cuz if you have it stuck in a closed off space you're setting yourself up for disaster.

That's pretty much all the advice I can gve you, reseat the Heatsink/rearrage the airflow or move the case, that is of course if the issue is heat related.