New system, new problems

[stone_fox]

Hi,
A few days ago I spent my well-earned money and splurged on a new PC for myself.
The build is as follows:

os: XP home edition
cpu: intel q6600
gpu: MSI pci-e 512mb 9800GT
mobo: intel s775 gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3
ram: patriot pc8500 1066mhz 4GB (2 x 2048MB)
hdd: 2 x SATA-300 500GB Samsung
psu: 500W Antec EarthWatts
monitor: ASUS 22" VW222U WS (running at 1680 x 1050)

So I've formatted both drives, installed Windows on one, downloaded and installed all the most up-to-date drivers and I have nothing but MSN and firefox open, and the system freezes (cannot move mouse, task-bar clock doesn't tick over, no way to interact with the system at all). I reboot, hoping windows will tell me what happened; nothing.

So I install and play Psychonauts and about 40 minutes into it, my system freezes. I restart, open the game again, about 25 minutes into it, it freezes again.
So now I am getting erratic system freezes, varying from 3 hours after reboot to 15 minutes after reboot.
I know it's not overheating, I downloaded several system-monitoring tools including Everest, and the temperatures were all fine (29ºC for processor, 28ºC for mobo, 47ºC for gpu at rest. When running prime-95 and generating pi to 8 million places, 48ºC for processor, 41ºC mobo)
I successfully played Psychonauts to the point where I quit the game, then I got a BSOD, with apparent "unknown device driver error", so I went back and re-installed drivers for the mobo (and all associated components e.g. audio, LAN etc) and graphics card. I haven't had a blue screen since but it still keeps freezing intermittently.

I ran 3DMark06, and was getting about 45fps (average) for the graphics tests, but 1fps for the CPU tests? (however I was running several CPU tests prior to that and it was running fine). I was half way through the fourth graphics test when my system froze again, then red boxes appeared, which made me think faulty graphics card. Furthermore, when installing NVIDIA drivers, Microsoft kindly informed me that they weren't 100% sure these drivers were compatible with XP. I did, however, download the XP labelled drivers, so I wouldn't think this would be that much of an issue.

Interestingly though, Everest didn't recognize the motherboard, and Windows device manager says that there are no drivers installed for Motherboard resources. I have checked and double-checked this and every single driver or piece of software I could get that's even mildy related to my mobo; I've installed it.

Basically, I'm wondering if any of you fine people knew of any compatibility issues between any of my components; either between each other or with XP home or anything of the sort, or could it be to do with my assembly of the parts?

If any of you could offer any help on this matter, I'd be forever grateful.

Thanks in advance

 

[evongugg]

It's probably your memory. There are problems with those motherboards and DDR2-1066.
Run memtest86+ and check for errors.
Try lowering the memory speed to DDR2-800.
Set the right voltage for the memory.

 

[dokk2]

It's probably your memory. There are problems with those motherboards and DDR2-1066.
Run memtest86+ and check for errors.
Try lowering the memory speed to DDR2-800.
Set the right voltage for the memory.

Here's hoping you are right and that he does have not memory incompatability,
i had similar series of problems,with approved system ram,
replaced it with high pref, ram and not even listed for this mobo...
IN OTHER WORDS ,,, don't believe everything,,,,you read.
didn't see his ,,(op's),, specific 2g listed in QVL.pdf,
did not download manual,he's got his own...:>)

 

[outlw6669]

+1 on double checking your memory with memtest.
Make sure your BIOS has the proper timings and voltage settings as specified by Patriot.

As for the rest...

1 FPS is normal for the CPU test, even with an overclocked Q6600.

With all of the driver issues you are having, I would probably reformat and reinstall Xp.
It could be that something got screwy with your instillation.

 

[stone_fox]

Thanks so much guys!
I'm flat out for the next day or two, so I won't be able to try any of your suggestions till then, but I just thought I'd say thanks so much for helping me out, I was really stumped

 

[outlw6669]

No problem.
If you are still having problems after the above, just drop another post!