New PC - Variety of Errors/BSOD

[abortiz]

Once again I turn to Tom's Hardware to guide my noob self with the building, assembling and setup of my first PC. My computer knowledge from 1-10 is probably a 3 so bare with me. My system specs are:

i5 2500k
asrock extreme4 gen3 p67 Motherboard
g.skill sniper 1600 ddr3 ram
gigabyte 560 ti
seagate barracuda 500gb hard drive

Ok, here it goes.

About 1 week ago, my parts arrived from newegg and Microcenter. I immediately took them to my cousins house so he could help me assemble it all. Within a few hours, he had my new computer assembled, Windows XP installed, and running starcraft 2 and diablo 3 beta. He and I played it for hours on end for about 4 days straight with no errors/BSOD.

Upon arriving back at my house the following week, I decided to buy windows 7 pro (student discount) and download it. I was upgrading to 64 bit WIndows 7, and without the actual disk I resorted to following the directions of guides that told me I could use a usb flash drive with an iso file. It told me to download bootsect.exe and put it on the flash drive as well. I restarted the computer and went into the BIOS, changed the boot order and bingo, windows 7 was ready to install. When prompted to restart and finish installation, i changed the boot order back to the hard drive, and it finished installation. Not sure if it is important to note, but when installing windows 7, I had two partitions, one was nearly 500gb, the other couldnt have been larger than 1gb and iirc it said unallocated space. I put windows 7 on the larger of the two partitions. I clicked the larger partition and clicked format, it cleared everything off of that partition.

After installation of windows 7, my computer was very fast, just had crap graphics. These are the steps I took after my clean install.
1. Installed Motherboard Drivers from CD - versions installed matched those off the website.
2. Installed Microsoft Security Essentials
***When updating MSE, "Virus and SPyware definitions update failed due to a missing system file, incorrect system setting, or a problem with the registry file" - I clicked retry and the update worked.
3. Registered Windows 7 online
***error 0xc002001b could not register, retry and it worked.
4. Downloaded Adobe FLash Player 11.1
5. Downloaded NVidia drivers for my card off their website.
___________________________________________________Major Problems begin here
6. Installing Starcraft II
***ERROR MESSAGE The file "C:\Program Files\StarCraft II\Campaigns\Liberty.SC2Campaign\base.SC2Assets : Assets\Textures\nukebackdrop2b.ogv" could not be written. If this problem persists, please contact Blizzard Technical Support. (MPQTarget::Write/SFileWriteFile)
**** Followed by a BSOD that read SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION
7. Tried Installing Titan QUest
***Restarted at ~40% complete, no error message
***Retry and it worked, tried running the game though and got "Fatal Error: Virtual Memory must be enabled to play Titan Quest"
8. Went back to Installing STarcraft II to see if I could reproduce what I got earlier.
The install finished, but I got an error on patching "file appears to be corrupt, may have to download again"
I retried, and got a BSOD - error code 1e.

Please help, any advice you can offer me would be much appreciated. I am this close to going back to windows xp, but the only thing stopping me is knowing it is something I am doing wrong to cause these errors (considering windows xp worked 100% fine).

 

[abortiz]

Tried updating windows 7 non security updates (4-5 selected) and got a BAD_POOL_HEADER blue screen with error code 0x0000019

 

[larkspur]

Is your 2500k or GPU overclocked?

 

[abortiz]

No, I have left everything as is.

 

[Raiddinn]

I would recommend starting over from scratch and redoing Windows 7.

If you do, make sure you delete anything that was already there if it asks you to. Partitions, volumes, all that stuff.

For that matter, you may want to check if the iso you downloaded has an associated md5 hash and see if the file on your computer has the same hash. It could stem from a corrupted download.

The first time I downloaded Ubuntu I somehow had a corrupt download and it made it impossible for me to completely install Linux on my computer. I DLd it again and it worked the second time.

 

[abortiz]

great, I had a suspicion my install was somehow bad. I am in transit to getting an actual windows 7 install disk from a friend. I will let you know how it goes. Cheers.

EDIT: How do i check if my download is corrup or check the md5 hash of my usb and computer? Recall that my computer knowledge is a 3 of 10.

 

[larkspur]

Use the actual install disk and try a fresh install. It sounds like either a screwy OS install or a dying HDD. You can go to your HDD's support website and download a utility which will test the HDD for errors. This might tell you if the HDD is failing. It sounds like trying a fresh install is a good place to start. But if the problems persist, test the HDD.

 

[pjmelect]

I think that you are having memory problems, try downloading and running overnight memtest86.

 

[abortiz]

everything worked fine when my cousin put it together with windows xp, so I am HOPING it is an installation problem. Turns out my friend did not have the correct windows 7 disk (he has home premium, I have pro), but he did lend me his windows vista 64 bit disk.

Currently installing vista 64 and will then upgrade online through my digital download (windows 7 pro).

 

[pjmelect]

Windows 7 is much more critical of memory than Windows XP, a computer that can run Windows XP without any problems may fail when running Windows 7 if there is anything wrong with the memory. You should always do a memory check on a newly built computer as you may have memory problems.

 

[abortiz]

I did run a windows memory diagnostic and it ran fine, but I will figure out how to use memtest86. Can i put it on a flash drive?

Just installed windows vists 64 bit and it was giving me blue screens left and right. Even when instaling windoes updates, etc, browsing the net.

 

[abortiz]

Ran a system health report and it returned some interesting results, no idea how to deal witht hem though.

It says my gaming graphics and graphics get a score of 1.0 which seems very odd. My total score was 1.0
EDIT: refreshed with new hardware detected and it changed the values to 5.9

Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2500K CPU @ 3.30GHz 5.9
Memory (RAM) 8.00 GB 5.9
Graphics NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti 5.9
Gaming graphics 4095 MB Total available graphics memory 5.9
Primary hard disk 437GB Free (466GB Total) 5.9

Memory Status = Normal Utilization = 20 % Details = 6568 MB Available (8gb installed?)

Still working on getting memtest up and running.

 

[abortiz]

and as a final note before i sleep. Currently running Memtest86 v4.2 - planning to leave it on for the next 6-7 hours.

One thing I noticed that may/may not be odd was the settings listed.

RAM 798mhz (ddr3 1596 RAM) cas 9-9-9-28

Shouldnt the mhz be a bit closer to the actual listed 1600mhz?

and as im typing this.............ERRORS 5 minutes in.

What is my next course of action???

 

[Raiddinn]

If you can't get through 8+ hrs of Memtest86 without errors you probably have broken RAM sticks.

Don't worry too much about the 798 mhz thing. RAM is a pretty complicated thing to understand, but I think that is normal.

I would recommend you replace your RAM with this 2x 4GB setup

CT2KIT51264BA160B
BL2KIT51264BA160A
CT2KIT51264BD160B

- Edit - any of these should be fine.

 

[abortiz]

MEM 4Gx2|GSKILL F3-12800CL9D-8GBSR2 is what I have currently. I guess I can send it to newegg and get a replacement? Or should I return it for a refund and buy locally? I am not familiar with neweggs return policy or customer service quality.

 

[Raiddinn]

I don't know what you should do with your current RAM. I just told you what I think will get you working most quickly.

 

[abortiz]

If RAM fails the memtest86 is there a possibility that it is not in the right channels, or the motherboard is bad, or something else? or is it 99% RAM is bad? Its dual channel installed in 1 and 3.

 

[Raiddinn]

You can consult your motherboard manual for proper placement, but a general rule is keep them in the same color slots. Another general rule is that in dual channel boards (where there are two of each color) it doesn't matter which color while in triple channel boards (3 of each color) it does matter.

If you are sure you have it pushed all the way in, then it is probably bad RAM.

There is no way you can be 100% sure without switching out parts.

If you can get your hands on some other compatible ram without buying it so you could try it out first, that would be ideal, but it is perhaps not possible.

 

[abortiz]

Ran memtest86+ again with one RAM stick at a time, in slot 1. Produced no errors over a 1hr run. I know its not full proof, but my last run of memtest with both sticks in produced errors in the first 5minutes.

Am going to test slot 3 to see if it is a bad slot. If it is a bad slot, will slots 2 and 4 work with my motherboard and canI just run my system off those slots???

Motherboard is an Asrock Extreme4 Gen3 p67

EDIT: When placed in slots 2 and 4, errors within the first few minutes. Currently testing slots 1 and 2, will then test slots 2, 3, and 4 with one RAM stick. This means this is a motherboard issue???

 

[Raiddinn]

It could just be a RAM issue, that would make the most sense. It could be the motherboard, but if people get errors on memtest it is usually assumed to be a RAM problem.

 

[pjmelect]

I am pleased to see that my suggestion that memory was the cause of your problem. When buying memory it is often better to get memory that has been tested and approved by the motherboard manufacturer. They have lists of approved and tested memory for your motherboard on their web site. If you stick with the memory that you have then you could try increasing the memory voltage in the BIOS until the memory test passes. When you have gotten the memory test to pass from cold for 8 hours or so you should then reinstall the operating system.

 

[abortiz]

I checked the motherboard memory compatibility page and mine was indeed listed there. I am currently reinstalling windows 7 with 1 4gb stick in slot 1. I have a friend bringing over his 2x4gb ram sticks to plug in and memtest. I am hoping his yields no errors.

I will keep you posted. thanks alot thus far you guys.

 

[abortiz]

His RAM yielded no errors in memtest86+ so I will be getting a refund from newegg and purchasing some new RAM locally.

On another note, why did my single RAM sticks pass memtest when both would error when installed in dual channel???

Currently running WIndows 7 Pro with 1x4gb stick installed, works pretty well so far, best its ever ran with this setup.

 

[abortiz]

Best answer selected by abortiz.