My computer is hosed!

[Schlup]

Well I spent about 6 hours tonight working on it.  Got all the new stuff installed and tried I don't know how many different things to get it running but I keep getting a BSOD as soon as it loads into Windows.  I don't know what the error code is because it flashes blue and reboots so fast I can't even see anything but that it's a blue screen.  I'm gonna try contacting ASUS tech support tomorrow and maybe they can help.  I pretty much took out everything out of the case that I could including: RAM sticks, switched the RAM sticks with some different kind of RAM, pulled one of my video cards out, unplugged my floppy, my two DVD writers, a couple of fans, etc.  All I have running now is processor, video card, 2 sticks of 1GB RAM, and a keyboard and still I get BSOD.  I'm pretty upset that this didn't go a little better...it never does for me though.  I'll get it running sooner or later though.  About the only thing I have left to do is to wipe out my 640GB or data on my HDD's and reload everything from scratch but I don't want to do that unless it's a last resort.  Even though I don't know how any of my data could cause a BSOD. 

P.S. If anybody has any suggestions please feel free to leave them with me and I'll give them a try!

[Schlup]

Hopefully my second build will go a lot better, though I have decided not to start it until my first build is working correctly!

[SolidSnake]

are you sure you are running only 1 master? and is your version of bios compat with the os (vista i assume)?

[Schlup]

I'm running both HDD's in RAID 0.  This might be the cause of my issue after reading a bit on their forums.  However, me running RAID 0 is non-negotiable, I'll have to get it working somehow.  But I don't have any problems with master/slave issues because I didn't change anything from my last build on another ASUS motherboard and it worked fine there.

I already upgraded the BIOS and yes it is compatible with everything I have in there.

[Silvir]

You do know that the issue is your new mother board right?

You have to reformat your hard drive if you switch out the mother board, because the hard drive is set to that mother board and it's settings... thus being a different bios and everything...

[Sir-diealot]

No advise just sorry to hear you are having problems.

[Schlup]

You do know that the issue is your new mother board right?

You have to reformat your hard drive if you switch out the mother board, because the hard drive is set to that mother board and it's settings... thus being a different bios and everything...

They are SATA drives Silvir...plug and play.  That shouldn't be the issue because I should be able to go plug those HDD's in somewhere else, get the data off of them and then plug them back into this board.  It is a different bios but it is by the same manufacturer so I was hoping that wasn't the issue.  You may be right Silvir but I hope not because I don't want to lose all my data.

[zigzag]

if works in another system, strip out all drivers in windows.. then hook up to new equipment.. might be an old driver causing the problem

[Silvir]

They are SATA drives Silvir...plug and play.  That shouldn't be the issue because I should be able to go plug those HDD's in somewhere else, get the data off of them and then plug them back into this board.  It is a different bios but it is by the same manufacturer so I was hoping that wasn't the issue.  You may be right Silvir but I hope not because I don't want to lose all my data.

It is the bios plus the motherboard, sata may be plug and play, but if it's configured to a certain bois type and motherboard type, it will only activate to those, cause I have a plug and play 500GB external hard drive, and it will only work on Vista computers and mine, no other XP computer will seem to run it...

[Schlup]

The two are pretty much identical in all aspects.  Calling ASUS tech support now...we'll see what they have to say.

[Destro]

You could get rid of the Raid.  It's not like you're running a mult tiered app that's constantly pulling stuff out of a database, or doing any sort of live video or audio recording (as far as I know).

[Schlup]

I need the improved read/write access times of the RAID 0...I have grown too accustomed to high performance HDD access to go back.  My only other option is to go and buy a SSD drive.

I just got off the phone with ASUS tech support and he says that Silvir was right.  Looks like I am wiping my HDD's 

[CptainCrunch]

I dont know why you are surprised about that. I told you a few days ago that that was probably going to be the outcome because of the RAID setup.

Any type of RAID is controlled by the controller card, in this case on the motherboard, and is setup for that.

At least you tried though.

Crunch

[Schlup]

Well I did know that going in but as you know I am stubborn and wanted to make every effort to save the data before I finally gave in.  So after I got confirmation from the ASUS rep that I would in fact have to wipe the drive and do a fresh install of my OS again I decided to make one last ditch effort to save the data and I installed my new OS over the top of my existing OS without formatting the drive.  What do you know IT WORKED!  The install moved all existing data over to a folder called "windows.old" so all I had to do was transfer the data from there into the new Windows folder.  So that's where I'm at now.  Got all that done, and installed SP1 for Vista and now I am just doing all the Windows updates again and installing any drivers that I need to install.

P.S. This new chip is smoking fast!  I ran the Vista Experience test which tells how good you are in all the main catagories.  My CPU didn't even get over 70% utilized while I was running the CPU test.  Scored 5.9 (the max) in all catagories.  Next step is to start running some stress tests and 3DMark06 to see what kinda scores I get.  Will probably wait a week or so of running stock and then do a light overclock (probably 3.2Ghz) then run that with stress tests for 3 or 4 weeks and then go for the goal which is 4Ghz!  I'm overall very happy with the upgrade even though it has taken about 10 hours of my time with all the issues I ran into.  Can't wait to see what kind of frame rates I am getting in game!  I'll keep you all posted on my other thread titled "I pulled the trigger!"

[zigzag]

Saw an article online, someone claims they over-clocked the AMD Phenom II's to like 4.9ghz , but that sounds stretched to me

[Schlup]

That's weak...current overclock world record set by AMD Phenom II X4 940 at 6.5Ghz

http://www.ripping.org/database.php?cpuid=892

The Intel i7 965 Extreme best is 5.6Ghz

http://www.ripping.org/database.php?cpuid=871

[zigzag]

Wow, when AMD said they left overhead for overclocking they werent kidding

[Schlup]

Nope, they have actually decided to use this same chip and overclock it from the factory as their next AM3 models.  They will have 5 new models coming out ranging on speed from 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 3.4, 3.5 all just overclocked 3.0 940's.  It will be great for the novice user and they will just eat it up but if you are smart you will just buy the 3.0Ghz 940 and overclock it yourself and save the money.