W7 install hanging on "starting Windows"

Street

Street

Street

Soldato
Joined
17 Jan 2005
Posts
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Location
Liverpool
I've put together an i5 build and am trying to install Windows 7 on it. However no matter what I try, the install does the loading files part and then just sticks on the "starting Windows" screen. I've left it there for ages but nothing happens, just a red dot in the middle of the screen where the colours are about to come out and make the Windows logo.

I've tried updating the BIOS on the board, trying a different board, swapping the RAM, graphics card, DVD drive, DVD, hard drive, cables, PSU and have disabled various things in the BIOS such as USB ports, sound, LAN etc but it doesn't seem to make much difference. I've tried W7 HP x64 and x86, I've made a bootable USB stick with W7 on and even tried Vista but it just won't install. Anyone got any other ideas on what it could be?

The specs are:
Intel Core i5-2400 3.10GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155
Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 6790 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
Gigabyte P61-USB3 Intel P61 Chipset (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard
Western Digital Caviar Blue 750GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache
OCUK Swift 750W Silent Power Supply
OCZ Platinum 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C7 1333MHz Dual Channel Kit


Thanks! :)
 
Surveyor said:
Which other PSU have you tried?

The one in you sig. is a bit cheap and nasty.
Click to expand...

I've tried a 600W Enermax that I had too. Couldn't stretch the budget to get them a decent PSU unfortunately..

RJC said:
Can you try a different hard drive, or you may have tried this already.
Click to expand...

The other one I tried was a Seagate drive.

Shikarilol said:
Is it a genuine copy of Windows?
Click to expand...

Yeh, I tried genuine OEM discs for all the OS versions I tried.
 
Do you get the same thing with a different hard disk?

how many sticks of memory are you using?

Can you try and see if you can install any other OS?(XP, Vista, Ubuntu?)
 
Ive had this happen to me, what i had to do was format my hard drive using another computer then installed windows. Dont know if this will work for you but it did for me.
 
I think I've worked it out this morning. I tried XP and Ubuntu and they both threw up errors when trying to install. One of Ubuntus errors mentioned the CPU though.

I went into the BIOS and disabled 3 of the cores on the CPU and everything installs fine. If I enable 2, it crashes just after post and if I enable 3, it gets a bit further but still crashes. I'm guessing its a problem with the CPU so looks like I'll have to return it for an RMA. It would make sense its the CPU as thats the only part I haven't swapped out!
 
Last edited:
Could be worth disabling all the power saving etc. CPU bits....
I recently built a system around a i750 and had exactly the same problems with the install just dying around where you describe it.....I disabled Speedstep, Enhanced C-states, Turbo and all other related jiggery-pokery and the install whizzed through just fine. Later re-enabled all the relevant bits and bobs, and the PC has been fine ever since !

Certainly worth a try, before RMA.... :)
 
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