ASUS P5N-T First Boot Up Problems

ASUS P5N-T Deluxe
WD 1TB HDD 32mb sATA
iHAS 22x DVD sATA
nVidia 9800 GTX 500mb
4GB 2x2GB sticks Ballistix DDR2 800
Intel Pent D 940 3.2GH
Teac Floppy
Vista Home 64 bit

Thought I was going to get away with building a decent budget machine, but the time involved in getting the ASUS to set-up is tremendous.

System boots to post. I can go to BIOS setup screen and change configs etc. but it will not let me flash the bios. If I attempt to bipass the bios flash and use the default bios, I always get the blue screen error.

I am sure my hardware is fine as I used it in the same configuration for about a month with a Biostar P4M900M7-FE motherboard and 4GB of Kingston DDR2, so the only changes were the mb and the Ballistix. I tested the Ballistix and they are okay, so I'm either doing something wrong or got a bad MB. Any ideas?

Thanks for the reply Mondoman.

Actually, I haven't changed anything in the BIOS. Just trying to boot up for the first time and following the directions in the User Guide. "Starting up for the first time" "At power on, hold down the <Delete> key to enter the BIOS Setup. Follow the instructions in Chapter 4.", which is all about BIOS Setup, etc.

By bypassing the bios, I meant, just booting up past post and entering windows. But, it doesn't get that far, just the blue screen with the error numbers.

Everything goes fine up until that point. I'd much rather go without flashing if I could, and I'm only planning on a very minor OC to give my cheap Intel processor a boost. But first I need to get to my windows screen and load the driver package that came with the MB.

I thought about moving one of my Ballistix to another slot, or removing one temporarily, but decided to try and get some knowledgable advise before I screwed something up.

Thanks in advance Mondoman for your time and expertise.

Thanks gogster2k and Mondoman for your advice. For now, I'm going with the stock BIOS and will install the update 1402 later. I took your advice and pulled out one stick of the Ballistix but still had a problem. Later I searched Microsofts error messages and learned that my problem was my OS. My Vista 64 wouldn't let me boot from the new mb and I ended up reformatting and all is working fine. I didn't loose anything file wise as I had them backed up on DVD's but I'm still working on reinstalling all of my programs and games etc.

I also reseated my heatsink with some OCZ FreeZe and it brought my core temps down a good 10-15c at idle. Now at 40c on my mb and 43c at idle on my CPU. Not bad really for a Prescott.

I'll keep working on my issues as this is my first build. I've learned a mountain of information that I thought I already knew and there is so much more to learn.

Anyway, I build my machine for less than $800 with lots of room for upgrades and expansion.

Thanks again for all your help and advice as well as other posted forums that I read through.