New PC with blue screens problems

[jekylhyde]

Hi
i just bought a new PC.
i'm trying for 2 days now to install windows but it's not stable.
first i installed win7 64bit. it was slow. & when i installed the ATI driver after reboot the system was all blue screens. over & over again.
so i installed vista. vista32 for starters (my cpu is 64).
it was more stable. but still bluescreens here & there.
so i went to the bios & disabled the new intel turbo option & it was stable. i now could install games & play!
so after an hour i quited to windows & ran the computer rating app that vista has to see how powerfull my system is. but after that ... i got reset.
& every time i went to windows after 20-30 sec the system auto rest itself...

i'm trying now to install XP 32bit.
just to see if it will be stable.
but i really don't know what to do.
is my bios settings are wrong?

the final thing is of course to be able to install win7 64bit.

my sys:
MB: GA-X58A-UD5 (rev. 1.0)
core i7 930 2.8Mhz 8mb cache
12Gb DDR3 1333MHZ PVT36G1333LLK
asus radeon hd 5750 1GB
hdd WD1002FAEX 1TB


links:

http://www.patriotmemory.com/products/detailp.jsp?prodline=5&catid=23&prodgroupid=111&id=759&type=1

http://www.gigabyte.com/support-downloads/download-center.aspx?kw=GA-X58A-UD5

http://support.asus.com/download/download.aspx?SLanguage=en-us

http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=5387&p_created=&p_cats=185&p_cv=1.185&p_pv=2.279&p_prods=227%2C279

help!!!

 

[MadAdmiral]

Your first problem is that you didn't try to test the build before installing drivers. Next, you didn't try rolling back the driver to see if that was the issue. After that, instead of tyring to troubleshoot the problem, you just went and installed a different OS, which could have made the problem worse. The last problem is that you were counting on Windows to benchmark the system, which is horribly inaccurate, but that's a different issue.

To start testing what's going wrong, first go into BIOS and restore the defaults. This won't fix anything, but it will make sure nothing is screwed up to start with. I suspect that the RAM's settings are not correct, as this tends to be the major cause of the BSOD.

Next, go to memtest.org and download the ISO file for MemTest86+. Burn the image to a CD. Once that's done, reboot.

Next, go back into BIOS and go to the memory settings and set the RAM to exactly what the manufacturer recommends (1.65V, 1333 mhz, 7-7-7-20). The voltage might not be there exactly, but get it as close as possible. Change your boot order to boot from the CD. Then restart.

Now, MemTest86+ should be running (you won't get into Windows). Let this run through at least 7 passes, which will basically be over night. This will make sure the RAM is operating properly.

Once this is finished, it would be a good idea to completely wipe the HDD (delete everything off the HDD, make sure to copy anything you absolutely need to a different HDD or a flash drive or burned to a CD) and start over with a single version of Windows (I highly recommend 7). It's not a good idea to immediately switch the OS just because of an issue. It generally makes pinpointing the problem harder. Once you've got a clean installation, download all the current drivers for everything. Then see if the problem persists. If it does, try to come back with the error code given on the blue screen. That will help a lot in finding the problem.

 

[jekylhyde]

i have downloaded from memtest the Auto-installer for USB Key & made a bootable usb disk on key.
i'm in memtest now. it is all automatic there. it choosed the CAS by itself.
you said that i need to choose the right ram settings. how to do that?
thanks

(ps.
i finished installing xp 32bit before that. all looked ok. but after installing the ati driver i got a blue screen)

 

[jekylhyde]

(i already set it by the bios but in the memtest util it looked like it got something else)

 

[MadAdmiral]

As long as you set it correctly in BIOS, you should be fine. If you're asking how to do that, read through the motherboard's manual. Each board's BIOS is slightly different, so I can't really tell you exactly how to do it.

 

[jekylhyde]

well
it's a brand new pc.
i really don't think the ram is bad.

memtest say that it's comlete & i may press esc (but it still running).

anyway, i don't mind let it run several hours more. but as i said - it's a brand new pc. it's not the ram.
what could i do at this point?

thanks

 

[MadAdmiral]

Parts can be shipped bad. Just because it's new doesn't mean it will work correctly.

 

[jekylhyde]

ok it ran 2 passes. no erros. about 5 hours.
whats next?
could it be because the hdd is connected to a gsata & not to a sata? (or to sata3 & not to sata2?)

 

[MadAdmiral]

It needs to run through at least 7 passes to be sure. You're going to need to be patient while it's running. If you cut it off too soon, the RAM could still be bad, but the scan didn't do it throughly enough to find out.

There would be no reason that the HDD being hooked up to a different connector would cause this. What would happen if it was hooked up wrong is that the build wouldn't recognize the HDD and it would have never booted up.

The next test (once MemTest has finished 7 passes) would be to check if the CPU is overheating. Download Prime95 and a CPU temperature monitoring software (CPU-Z, CoreTemp, SpeedFan, etc.) and run them together for at least an hour. Prime95 will put the maximum load on the CPU, which will cause it to heat up. If the CPU gets too hot, the computer will crash to protect the parts. As long as the temperature doesn't go over 70 degrees Celsius, it's fine.

I doubt it's the CPU overheating though. 90% of BSODs are caused by faulty or improperly set RAM.