DS3 : Cant get it stable?

[FatRakoon]

I have asked this previously, but its just gone beyond a joke now.

I try to install a game, I really want to play Need For Speed Underground 2 for over 5 minutes , or at least long enough to actually finish a race and get it saved, but its not happening.

Ok, the specs are :-

DS3 ( Obvious ) with F7 BIOS
( Makes no difference to which BIOS though )

x800 GTO2
( Also does the same with any other PCI Card or driver too )

2 x 512MB Corsair XMS 6400 C4
( Also does same with Kingston, Geil and OCZ )

Win XP Pro SP2
Same with XP Home, X64, Win2K Although x64 was the most reliable.
I have tried a few flavours of each too, with SP1 or SP2 and even without,
but nothing seems to make any difference?

PSU is currently a Hyper 530 but also tried a few others too.

Im at a total loss...

I have been changing various settings in the BIOS - especially for the RAM, but that does not seem to make the slightest bit of difference? - Currently running 4-4-4-12 @ 2.1v

Currently running MicroSofts own ATI driver because newer versions of the CCC Catalysts crash on the CLI... This happened on the AMDs too, so thats an ATI issue and I cant be bothered to look into that at this time.

Its got all the current updates, but again, having none and even with no SP at all, it still crashes so they cannot be to blame?

Current running Apps =
Folding At Home on both cores, but again, this makes no difference.
NOD32 - Shouldnt be an issue should it?
AdAware SE
SpyWare Doctor

Other than that, apart from Windows own junk, its a clean system.

Sometime Spyware doctor comes up, and this trundles the system to a practical halt which does not happen on the AMDs but again, that should not be the problem should it?

Im completely stuck... Please for gods sake, someone help me out here.

I have spent a lot on this PC in the hope of gettign a great system, but Im ending up with somethign thats fast with benchmarks and slow against my poorest AMD for real work, and its the most unreliable PC I have had for years!

 

[FatRakoon]

Nope.

Stability makes no difference what I do to it... Or what I dont do?

There is absolutely not difference whether its F6 or F7 BIOS
ATI or NVIDIA
Different Drivers too, for each component I have in it, be it the Mobo itself, the Graphics, and Audio
Clocked or not
Kingston, Corsair, Geil
Even tried different HDs, CDs, XP Versions, even 2000 Pro, and even different PSU and there is one thign they all have in common and that is the system is the most unreliable PC I have ever owned... Since the last Intel anyway.

Nah, thats unfair cos 99% of stuff runs perfectly fine, but right now, me and the kids are going through a Need For Speed Phaze with Underground 2 being the top of the list and that lasted for a fair while with XP64 but its gone on that now too!

 

[FatRakoon]

Oh no... It runs perfectly fine.

Well, the RAM slots are bad... Worse than that actually... When I tried to get it running with the corsair RAM, it failed miserably. I thought that the Volts had to be set with my Kingston first to 2.1 but when I tried to put them back in, I could not get it to play... AT ALL?

I must have put the sticks in one by one at least 20 or so times before I got it to post again, and in the end I put the unit on its side and slowly and very carefully made sure that the RAM was seated 100% and right now, Im 100% sure the RAM is in exactly spot on, because it does run just fine... As a normal every day PC.

Its when I try to play NFSU2 or some other games that it fails... It just brings up the Error report dialog, and crashes back to the desktop.

Posts fine, overclocks like a nutter, Primes 24/7 just fine, memtest checks it out fine and pretty much any benchmark or test program I throw at it says its 100% fine, but I cannot play games for all that long at all.

All the hardware in this PC has been tasken out of an MSI Neo4-F and when I tested them again in the Neo, it works just perfect.

I cannot for the life of me pin-point the problem because everything checks out perfect.

 

[FatRakoon]

Artic Cooler on the CPU, Case has 2x120mm either end so thats fairly ok.

The North bridge furnace is certainly questionable, so I got this old thingy that has 2x60mm on it, that I have attached to the PCI Slot screws so its blowing over the PCIE Card, and onto the North bridge heatsink and this is certainly making things a lot cooler there. This is somehting I want to address properly later on, but I wont alter anything just in case I do indeed need to send the board back.

CPU is 34c
All HDs are reading 26c and one is currently showing 28c

So, cooling isnt the issues surely?