Help with PC crashing all the time

Hello,

i have just built a new PC here are the hardware specifics:
- Motherboard: Asus p7p55D-E Premium

- CPU: Intel i7 860

- Ram: G.Skill Ripjaws 4GB(2x2G) DDR3 PC12800 GS-F3-12800CL9D-4GBRL

- GPU: Amaze Radeon HD 5770 1GB

- HDD 1 (OS install): 2.5" G.Skill Falcon II 64GB SSD SATA-II

- HDD 2 (storage): Western Digital WD 1TB 3.5" Black 64Mb Cache SATA III

- PSU: Thermaltake Blue gaming 750w

- OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit OEM

Problem: the PC seems very unstable. when booting up it continues to crash right after i login to windows, when i say crash it either freezes then reboots or it will just freeze and i am forced to manually reboot. i originally thought it might have something to do with the AMD ATI driver and the CCC, so i updated them, it was then a little more stable, as in it didnt crash as often, but it still crashes the same as before and also during gameplay, id be lucky to get 10-15mins of gameplay before it crashes on me.

temp solution: what i have had to do is load the PC in "safe mode", disable the ATI driver, load windows, then go back into the display driver settings and re-enable the driver. this is what i have been doing and it seems to work ok, again it hasnt fully resolved my problem, it will still crash not as often and i can browse and play games for longer periods of time, but the issue of crashing still stands.

can anyone help? is it really my display driver causing the pc to crash all the time or not?

It seems to be....it's part of the reason I switched to NVidia is that ATI's display drivers are buggy, and thats not to say NVidias are spotless, but ATI's can get bad, real bad, and I think that is the case here. Try uninstalling the drivers, dowload a fresh copy from ATI's website, and then reinstall the drivers.

does anyone know of a stable driver i can try?

Firstly, ATI in the past were very buggy, most people who moved onto Nvidia still believe this si the case. They are not entirely wrong - I still feel Nvidia drives are more reliable, but by no means perfect. I myself have moved onto ATI due to their GPUs being better value and very good, though I had to overcome my personal hurdle of fear of drivers. Ironically 10.3 drivers did not work for me - they fail to install everytime so i am on 10.2 and will try 10.4.

But as for the OPs problem. I would say this is a RAM issue, I just spent a week overcoming the same problem - random freezes for unknown reasons.

First thig I would do is go into the Bios and check the latency and voltage against what your RAM states is optimum (you can usually find this out on the website description of the RAM or on the sticks themselves). If it is different, correct this and see how the computer runs. My guess is it wont but worth trying.

The next thing to do is keep at recommended settings but remove one of the RAM sticks and use the computer with just 1 2gb stick. If this runs fine (or doesn't) then do the sme with the other stick. Hopefully one of the sticks allows your computer to be stable and the other freezes you or even fails to boot the machine (as was my case). Then you know which stick is faulty and can RMA it. If both cause stability issues there is a chance that both need to be RMA, but the problem is if both are faulty you cannot be sure it is RAM and not some other issue.

The other option is to go to the Bios and slow the RAM down. I found with my RAM, at 1600mhz the computer was unstable (due to the faulty stick I had which alone would not boot the machine at all) bu when I slowed it down to 1066mhz, the computer was stable, the lesser strain on the RAM stick allowed it to run without issue.

If this works then I would say it is an issue with the RAM but you can run Memtest86 or memtest86+ to be sure

You can also use the windows 7 memory test for a more qualitative test. I had similar crash problems and found out it was because I had defective ram.

Have you locked or manually adjust the PCIe bus frequency on BIOS?

Note : Don't forget to lock the frequency of the PCIe bus to default frequency or set the frequency manually to the default speed if you OC the wholw system.

no it wasnt overheating...
i decided to take it apart and do everything again and one by one reinstall all the components... looks like one of my RAM sticks was faulty, took it to the store yesterday and they confirmed its stuffed, so im getting a new set of G.Skill Ripjaws 4GB(2x2G) DDR3.

is it normal for them to take 2weeks for replacement?...
by the way im in Sydney Australia....

ok... got the new ram and all is good... the pc is now working how it should.

also got myself a CPU cooler - Noctua NH-U9B...