BSOD on new build. HELP!!!

silentbob150

silentbob150

silentbob150

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23 Jun 2008
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Last night I put together a PC for the first time in my life and everything seemed to be going brilliantly. Turned it on and was greeted by all the correct messages etc.

Then came the Windows installation. This did not go well.

I have reinstalled Windows Vista Home Premium 32bit three times in total, tried to use the repair function on the installation disc twice but still doesn't help.

I keep getting regular BSOD's, only they go past so damn quickly it's difficult to read even the first line. I recall one of them had the words MEMORY_MANAGEMENT at the top and another one said something like IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL or something like that and I have no idea what's wrong with it.

To make matters worse, my friend also built his computer last night using exactly the same components as me and his worked perfectly!!! The only difference was the DVD drive, his was a Sony, mine a Samsung.

Any advice you could give me will be greatly appreciated.
 
Welcome and claimed! You don't give specs, but my guess is you have a memory issue. Try installing with only 2 gb installed and then update it to sp1 or get kb929777 hotfix installed and then add the extra 2 gb ram. I am guessing you have 4 gb.

If not, then I still think you have memory issues, run memcheck which you can download to test the ram. If you have more than 1 stick, try swapping them. Also make sure you have memory remap enabled in BIOS
 
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Thank you for the speedy reply. I've been doing some google searching and thought that it might be RAM related. I have 2GB of Corsair XMS ram installed. I'm going to take a stick out tonight (at work at the moment) and try running the memory diagnostic built into Vista and then doing the same with the other stick.

I was just wondering if there were any alternatives which it could be, but all evidence so far points towards the RAM being the problem. Fingers crossed. Hopefully it will be the RAM and that way won't be too much fuss to replace.

However, in desperation, I did try repairing the Vista install using the installation disc (OEM copy) and it said that it was unable to repair in automatically, which worried me a lot.

If it helps, here are my specs:

Intel Core 2 Duo 8400 3.0GHz
2GB Corsair XMS RAM
ASUS P5k Wi-Fi Intel P35
500GB Seagate HDD
BFG 8800GT OC
Samsung 20x DVD-RW

And a 22" Samsung with an annoying green stuck pixel. :rolleyes:
 
Have a look at your volatges & timmings for your memory, there is usualy a sticker on the memory modules.

Can you check any components in another pc!

Rob
 
I'm basically going to wander home tonight and try everything in my power to get the damn thing to work and if all else fails at least I'll have a handy air-con unit with nice blue lights in it.:p

I'll get back to you and let you know how it goes. Once again, thank you for the suggestions.
 
It appears to now be fixed, although I'm not 100% convinced as to exactly what the problem is.

I got home last night and tried a windows memory diagnostic with both sticks of RAM in the machine. This flagged up a hardware error and suggested that I contact the manufacterer.

I then repeated the test with both sticks individually and they both went through fine. I replaced them both, was halfway through installing Dawn of War and blue screen again. IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL. Nothing new.

I then removed one of the sticks of RAM (chose randomly) and have had no problems since. Either I luckily picked the right one or both sticks are actually fine and just don't like working together.

My plan for this evening is to have a friend bring his two sticks of RAM over to my house to try them on my machine and see what happens.

Could anyone explain why both sticks would go through the Windows Diagnostic separately, but not together?
 
Could be the motherboard and compatibility perhaps...

Have you tried both sticks of ram in the next memory channel on the board? As in Channel B rather than Channel A or something.
 
silentbob150 said:
Could anyone explain why both sticks would go through the Windows Diagnostic separately, but not together?
Click to expand...

look at your ram, there should be a sticker on it saying what volts it runs on. go into bios and set ram voltage manually to what it says on sticker, because most motherboards default ram voltage is 1.8v and your ram might need a bit more than that to run both sticks.
 
I did think of that but couldn't for the life of me find where to change the voltages in the BIOS settings. Found the settings for the timings, but not for voltage. Everything on there was set to "auto" so I don't know if that could cause problems and whether I would be better putting it all on manually.

Also, my friend has an identical motherboard and RAM and his works fine.
 
Well if your friend has the same, swap the RAM over if he will allow you to, and then do the same tests...See if the prboblem follows the RAM, or sticks with the Motherboard.
 
I have a P5K and Corsair XMS memory and had the BSOD memory issue in Windows XP32when I built my system. Took a lot of manual bios tweeking to get the memory timings happy and voltages up to their right level and the system all stable.
 
Simular experience, I was having BSOD and random crashs on a system i built a few years back. Was corsair memory, and the settings in the BIOS were set to auto. Was advised by corsair that on some motherboards you needed to up it a little/set the voltage manually to compensate for fluctuations ect. Auto does not always provide the best results. If your BIOS has an auto setting for the voltage, id try just setting it to the default value for it manually first.
 
Have you updated your mobo BIOS? If you're still having trouble some full specs may help us.

As others have already said, try bumping your voltages up a bit and manually set your timings.

May also be worth up'ing your NB voltages a tiny bit - don't know if it's just me, but that gave me a massive stability boost on a 680i board.
 
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