Major problems with Home Premium 64

[Celticparadox]

Hi all

Im looking for some help with my build...ill post the components

Intel Q9400 Quad Core
EVGA 750i SLI Motherboard
2x XFX 8800GT Alpha Dog Videocards
8g OCZ Platinum Edition RAM
1 WD Velociraptor 300g drive (main)
1 WD Green 1 TB drive (storage)
Alpine Cooling Pro Freezer 7 (cpu heatsink)
Vista Home Premium 64 bit

Now to the issues

The install of Vista has been nothing short of a nightmare..the OS keeps locking up at random intervals and reducing me to tears. I can't even seem to get the drivers installed without issues. I have tried to do most from safe mode to no avail. The next step was to remove all but 2 g of RAM and one of the video cards but things are still locking up for no apparant reason. Sometimes the install hung on "expanding Files" sometimes it would make it through that only to hang at the splash screen or once the os had booted up. We ten tested all the RAM with a ram test and everything was fine. Im at my wit's end here as I have pulled everything out to make it as bare bones as possible.

One thought from a friend was that the raid drivers may be causing an issue as this has been known to happen on intel mobos. Although I thought I had the Raid driver off anyway as Im not doing an array....yet. Has anyone had issues like this and if so could you impart your results please and thank you.

 

[dmex]

Hi Celticparadox,

Check for a BIOS update, reset it back to defaults and also Disable HPET if you have that option in your BIOS (very important) and also try changing SATA ports (Motherboards make some ports slower and other faster)

Steven

 

[Celticparadox]

Hey Steve

The bios that is in there is brand new...this is the initial setup that im having problems with. The SATA drives are plugged into 0 and 1 (or 1 and 2) depending.

 

[HexManiac]

You say the BIOS is "brand new", but is it the latest version? Also, use one module of RAM and manually set it up to 5(CAS)-5(RCD)-5(RP)-15(RAS) @ 800(DDR) MHz. Sometimes nvidia chipsets have problems setting up the RAM, causing stability problems. I had RAM problems with a new setup of an XFX 780i. Thankfully they are a thing of the past.

 

[Celticparadox]

Does anyone have a link for the Phoenix BIOS updates...most of the links I have found are no good

 

[Dzomlija]

Does anyone have a link for the Phoenix BIOS updates...most of the links I have found are no good

You can get the corret BIOS from the downloads page of your Motherboard.

 

[HexManiac]

You will have to register your mobo with EVGA. Also, make sure you know if you have the 750i SLI or the 750i SLI FTW. I can find some BIOS file for your mobo out there but it would be better if you got it from EVGA.

 

[Celticparadox]

I got the one from EVGA last night and flashed it and POW no video signal whatsoever. I had to remove the battery and reset the MB to get a pic again...and that was using the correct BIOS

 

[UNTAMED]

I got the one from EVGA last night and flashed it and POW no video signal whatsoever. I had to remove the battery and reset the MB to get a pic again...and that was using the correct BIOS

-that's correct after flashing the bios , power it off or reset it, if the system has a heavy oc default the bios before the update , boot to new bios save with no changes reboot , if raided do the set up , reboot when set up the bios

-you have alot of equipment ,so you should be upping the voltage settings I think like the nb-sb, memory , pll, vtt , gtl's ,I don't have your board so evga mb forums might have a recommend SAFE settings ,my board 780i won't run quads on auto under stress.
-maybe some of that might help.
edit
-you list two drives I hope you only had one installed on the vista install,

-edit 2

-what chipset\nforce drivers did you load , ones on the cd are old?
-ones to use nforce15.23 nForce Driver
-video driver geforce 178.24

 

[Celticparadox]

yeah i have minimal stuff in for the install..2 g of memory..1 video card, no sli and only the main hd

 

[Celticparadox]

UPDATE...after doing a hard reset on the BIOS (removing battery etc) the monster is alive and well and crushing everything in sight. All the hangups have gone away and everything is silky smooth like buttah

 

[NormCameron]

Well done. Nice to have a win!

 

[Celticparadox]

yeah im so doing the happy dance over here

 

[Dzomlija]

UPDATE...after doing a hard reset on the BIOS (removing battery etc) the monster is alive and well and crushing everything in sight. All the hangups have gone away and everything is silky smooth like buttah

Glad to hear that everything is working smoothly for you now.

Just a tip for you (in case this ever happens again, touch wood!). Look on your motherboard, somewhere near the BIOS or the battery would be a CMOS reset jumper of some kind. RTFM if you don't find it. It's easier and presents less risk than removing the battery.