Huge Windows 7 Problems. Please help!

[Bluue]

Ok guys, I'm about ready to tear out what little hair I have left. I need help.

Here's what happened:

I was playing the Starcraft 2 beta on Windows 7 64 bit home premium, decided I had enough, quit out of the program, about this same time my cable internet connection died (that was bright house's fault) and my computer started to freeze up. Ok fine, its a beta, freezing happens. I restart. Blue screen.

Over the next few restarts I get a few blue screens including pagefile in a non-pagefile area and memory manager errors. Safe mode works off and on as I disable start-up programs and try to transfer files to my other internal hdd.

I try to fix it by limiting start-up programs, uninstalling AVG, and re-installing drivers which all had mysteriously failed including network drivers - no internet even when it starts working again. Win7 also starts saying that it may not be authentic and needs to confirm its authenticity. (it is authentic, i have legit dvds from MS) Computer not stable at all. I get everything I need backed up and decide windows 7 needs to be re-installed.

I do a quick format in NTFS with my external docking bay attached to laptop, try to re-install windows and get BOOTMGR not found errors every time. I can boot off of dvd but if I don't hit a button soon enough the BOOTMGR not found error pops up and I have to ctrl alt del and try again.

I run memory check, no problems, i run bootrec /fixboot and that doesn't do anything. Same error. I try installing win7 again and it gets to expanding windows files and doesn't even get to 1% and says files not found. Oh crap.

Ok, I pull hdd, do a full reformat overnight, clear cmos, reset everything back to default in my mobo except I turn back on usb devices. try installing again and it gets to 2% expanding and same error. (error code 0x80070570)

Nuts. I try bootrec /fixboot and bootrec /fixmbr (in that order, is that right?) Still get BOOTMGR not found.

Now the win7 installation menu takes literally minutes to even appear when I access it where it used to be instant. Still will not install. I tried to copy files to USB to do a bootable USB but was never able to get it to work.

Computer:
Gigabyte ex58-ud5
ram: 3x2 gigs ocz gold 1600
hdd: 640gb WD Caviar black for OS
2hdd: 1tb seagate for storage
video card: MSI 4890 OC edition
heatsink/fan: TRUE 120 rev C with kaze 3000
case: Coolermaster HAF 932
OS: Win 7 x64 Home Premium

It was running fine since I built it in October 2009, completely stable with a 3.6ghz overclock temps in the high 30's up to 43ish at idle and no more than mid 70's during stress tests.

I spent a bit of money on this and now its an oversized and loud paperweight. I've done all kinds of google searches, tried almost everything. I'm not a noob I'm usually the one fixing computers but this has me stumped. Please help. If you need more info, please ask!

Thanks.
-Bluue

 

[Bluue]

Just got the USB bootable win7 to load (it was under hard drive and not usb in the bios?) but it blue screened and I got:

MEMORY_MANAGEMENT BSOD

I'm going to try pulling RAM sticks out 1 by 1 I guess.

 

[dcinmich]

Make sure you take your computer CPU and memory overclocks back to original specs. As a precaution. Better to be safe than sorry.

Also, make sure you run Memtest. You never know when something will go wrong with one of those things, especially running large graphic intensive games.

I hate Betas, that's why I stay away from them.

 

[Bluue]

I restored all the defaults in the BIOS the RAM was actually underclocked by around 200mhz if memory serves.

Windows is actually expanding! I will update again if/when it completes and if it appears to be stable. If this ends up being the problem I'm going to order 3 new sticks of ddr3 in the morning.

I hear mushkin is a good brand, maybe give them a shot next. No more OCZ for me if they were the culprit behind all of this!

 

[dcinmich]

Mushkin is a good company and I hear their RAM is very good. I'm using G.SKILL myself, which is also very reliable RAM. My board only supports DDR2. You probably already know this, but just make sure the RAM is compatible with your mobo.

 

[Bluue]

Ok, it did end up being the ram (figures its something expensive). Is it worth me trying to figure out which ram stick it was, risk crashing things again? Should I just replace the whole set?

 

[dcinmich]

Memtest should be able to tell you which DIMM stick it was. At least from what I remember, but it's been a long time since I used Memtest. Can you run Memtest on each stick individually? At least that way you could narrow it down and not have to replace them all.

 

[Bluue]

I dont think im even going to try it. I'll just replace it all. Best to have RAM of all the same type anyway.

Mods/Admins can feel free to lock this thread. Thanks.