- Jan 20, 2009
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This one has a bit of an explanation, so bear with me. Also, I have a thread on the same system but before I bought a new mobo, processor and RAM, which may or may not be relevant. It is located here: Cannot Boot Windows
Anyways, on to the problem. Being a Computer Science major and living close to home, I am the IT support for my family. I built my little brother a computer, which we upgraded this past weekend, here are the specs:
Old System:
AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ 2.0 GHz
Asus M2A-VM microATX mobo
4x1GB DDR2-800 RAM
GeForce GTS 250
250GB SATA HDD
60GB IDE HDD
IDE DVD-RW drive
Cooler Master 650W PSU
New System:
AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition 3.2 GHz
Gigabyte GA-880GA-UD3H ATX mobo
2x2GB DDR3-1333 Patriot Memory
GeForce GTS 250
250GB SATA HDD
SATA DVD-RW Drive
Cooler Master 650W PSU
During the issues we were having before (mentioned in the old thread) I gave him my SATA DVD drive which I no longer needed. I also scrapped the 60GB IDE HDD, just to eliminate as a source of the problem. Eventually I managed to solve the previous problem and reinstall Windows which worked fine for a while until we upgraded the mobo, RAM, and processor. After installing them, while I was helping him install drivers and such for his new components we started getting blue screens. Unfortunately I didn't think to write them down right away, but I can tell you that they were varied.
When this started happening I figured it was something to do with the drivers and that it would probably be easiest to just reinstall Windows. So I did that...or TRIED to do that. I tried about 3 times and each time it would either freeze during the install or give me a blue screen. The last few installs gave me a blue screen after it had restarted after the initial install. I should also mention that each time I tried installing I reformatted the HDD. During all this, the 2 blue screens I saw (the others were cleared by my brother) were ntfs.sys and "Bad Pool Header". Going off the ntfs.sys BSOD I thought that a bad HDD would describe almost all of his past issues, so I grabbed a 250GB HDD out of my main system but again had the same issues.
I have included a list of information below, that I thought may help and I will update that as people as questions about stuff I haven't though of (which will no doubt happen). I'm stumped, so I'd greatly appreciate your help!
- Using the 1st HDD I also installed Ubuntu which installed just fine and which I used for about half an hour with no issues. However, my brother doesn't know how to use Ubuntu very well and he like playing PC games so this isn't really a solution.
- All installs except the last one were made installing Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit. I also made a copy of the install DVD on my main system, just in case there was some scratch or something...thought it was worth a shot, but it didn't help. I also tried installing using the 32-bit install DVD but again had the same issues.
- Since I first tried to reinstall Windows after the initial blue screens, the farthest I have gotten in the installation process is the screen where you enter the product key but it gave me a blue screen right as I clicked the "Continue" button, and I only got that far once.
- With only the DVD drive, HDD, 1 stick of RAM, monitor, keyboard, and mouse connected I was able to successfully install Windows.
- With only 1 stick of RAM installed I was able to install a bunch of programs, the graphics card and its driver, run the Windows System Rating, and play about 15 minutes of Black Ops, all without blue screens.
- With the 2nd stick of RAM installed I got a "Page fault in non page area" blue screen immediately after the System Rating finished, and I got an "IRQL not greater or less than" blue screen about 30 seconds into Black Ops. However, I ran 16 passes of Memtest86 (booting from the CD) without producing any errors.
Anyways, on to the problem. Being a Computer Science major and living close to home, I am the IT support for my family. I built my little brother a computer, which we upgraded this past weekend, here are the specs:
Old System:
AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ 2.0 GHz
Asus M2A-VM microATX mobo
4x1GB DDR2-800 RAM
GeForce GTS 250
250GB SATA HDD
60GB IDE HDD
IDE DVD-RW drive
Cooler Master 650W PSU
New System:
AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition 3.2 GHz
Gigabyte GA-880GA-UD3H ATX mobo
2x2GB DDR3-1333 Patriot Memory
GeForce GTS 250
250GB SATA HDD
SATA DVD-RW Drive
Cooler Master 650W PSU
During the issues we were having before (mentioned in the old thread) I gave him my SATA DVD drive which I no longer needed. I also scrapped the 60GB IDE HDD, just to eliminate as a source of the problem. Eventually I managed to solve the previous problem and reinstall Windows which worked fine for a while until we upgraded the mobo, RAM, and processor. After installing them, while I was helping him install drivers and such for his new components we started getting blue screens. Unfortunately I didn't think to write them down right away, but I can tell you that they were varied.
When this started happening I figured it was something to do with the drivers and that it would probably be easiest to just reinstall Windows. So I did that...or TRIED to do that. I tried about 3 times and each time it would either freeze during the install or give me a blue screen. The last few installs gave me a blue screen after it had restarted after the initial install. I should also mention that each time I tried installing I reformatted the HDD. During all this, the 2 blue screens I saw (the others were cleared by my brother) were ntfs.sys and "Bad Pool Header". Going off the ntfs.sys BSOD I thought that a bad HDD would describe almost all of his past issues, so I grabbed a 250GB HDD out of my main system but again had the same issues.
I have included a list of information below, that I thought may help and I will update that as people as questions about stuff I haven't though of (which will no doubt happen). I'm stumped, so I'd greatly appreciate your help!
- Using the 1st HDD I also installed Ubuntu which installed just fine and which I used for about half an hour with no issues. However, my brother doesn't know how to use Ubuntu very well and he like playing PC games so this isn't really a solution.
- All installs except the last one were made installing Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit. I also made a copy of the install DVD on my main system, just in case there was some scratch or something...thought it was worth a shot, but it didn't help. I also tried installing using the 32-bit install DVD but again had the same issues.
- Since I first tried to reinstall Windows after the initial blue screens, the farthest I have gotten in the installation process is the screen where you enter the product key but it gave me a blue screen right as I clicked the "Continue" button, and I only got that far once.
- With only the DVD drive, HDD, 1 stick of RAM, monitor, keyboard, and mouse connected I was able to successfully install Windows.
- With only 1 stick of RAM installed I was able to install a bunch of programs, the graphics card and its driver, run the Windows System Rating, and play about 15 minutes of Black Ops, all without blue screens.
- With the 2nd stick of RAM installed I got a "Page fault in non page area" blue screen immediately after the System Rating finished, and I got an "IRQL not greater or less than" blue screen about 30 seconds into Black Ops. However, I ran 16 passes of Memtest86 (booting from the CD) without producing any errors.
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