Major problem with my rig guys. Sorry if this is somehow answered in the 18 pages of text, but I don't have the time to sift through, I read a lot of it, and I think I miaght know what the main prob might be, but anyway. ANY advice would be great from the gigabyte kings here. Here it goes:
I have been having major problems with my setup, and over christmas break im sending a whole hoopla of crap back. I put together all my stuff at the beginning of august. My rig? As follows:
Gigabyte K8NSNXP-939 pin
AMD 64 3800+
1 gig (2x512) pc3200 Mushkin RAM
Saphire Radeon x800 XT PE
2 x 120gb WD SATA hard drives...7200RPM
PCpowercooling true 510watt deluxe
Lian-li case
My problem? Have a look:
I have no idea what the hell is wrong with my setup, I'm thinking my Mobo is faulty..Get this, when I was trying to install Windows Xp for the first time, it kept crashing while trying to install kernel.dll or something of that sort. It kept crashing at the same spot, so I thought naturally it was a hardware problem with RAM being the major issue. I try memtest and sure enough the RAM was getting errors in dual channel. So i try each stick separately, no problems and no errors. Windows randomly isntalls on the next few tries after trying different CD-ROM drives etc etc. It was a nightmare. So I now still have this setup, and i get BSOD all the friggen time when I am playing games, or sometimes even opening folders in windows when i'm playing an mp3 or something. I used to get machine_check_exception errors all the time (hardware issue) but now it just restarts on me. I can barely play counter-strike source for a few minutes before it crashes, its basically a crap-shoot. I thought it would be a RAM problem so i try mem test again, dual channel shows errors, once again single sticks show nothing, so i try the other dual channel slots and the machine goes to a screen that says "you have changed your hardware set up, how would you like to enter windows." Whatever option i choose, it always restarts me, and I can't get into windows. So essentially I have to revert to my old dual channel in slots 1 and 2. I tried upping my voltage to my RAM to 2.7, but still no dice. I also updated my BIOS, and nothing. I don't know what to do guys. Judging by the a post of someone who ahs my board, he said its the board has problems with anything but pc2700, but I think i might have a defective board. For one of the most expensive boards on the market, i expected better performance out of this sucker. Anyway, I'm going to RMA the board and the RAM. Maybe I just had a bad board, unless anyone thinks i have a compatibility issue. Also, if this helps, Installing Sims2 gave me major problems as well, but eventually it worked. Any suggestions or help is greatly appreciated, I'm about to lose it over here, after spending like a boat load on my system.
P.S startup screen says my RAM is in dual channel mode at 200mhz. If that info helps.