Never seen this before, please help!

topgun06 · 7 Feb 2007 at 21:52

Hi, my mate went to OcUK today to buy his new PC. The spec is:

Intel e6300
Asus P5N-E SLi
Geil 2GB PC6400C4
Leadtek GeForce 7950 GT 256MB
Seagate Barracuda 160GB
Corsair 620W PSU

We fitted it together and booted up. Went into BIOS and set the boot priority to the CD Drive and put the XP CD in. This is where the problems started. As the PC started to boot from the CD it would sometimes reset or it would get to the point where it says "Setup is examining hardware configuration" (or something like that) and just freeze.

Or it would show a screen like this:

Please help!! Thanks.

mattpj · 7 Feb 2007 at 22:03

Hi,

It looks like it could be memory related. Have you tried just sticking one dimm in a black slot on the motherboard.

Apparently, the GEIL give no end of trouble on certain boards, but was perfectly fine on mine

Good luck

kenstheman · 7 Feb 2007 at 22:16

It seems like a ram issue to me. I would try underclocking the ram and/or running only one stick and see if you can get any further.

topgun06 · 7 Feb 2007 at 22:28

Tried all combinations of RAM. One stick, two sticks, different slots etc. Still no difference.

What steps should i take now?

Reality|Bites · 8 Feb 2007 at 00:11

Your memory isn't compatiable with your motherboard.

your Asus motherboard only works with certain brands of memory.

You should have a sticker on the box stating this.

I would either return the memory or the motherboard and get something else.

topgun06 · 8 Feb 2007 at 00:15

Are you sure? It works perfectly fine in my rig, just not in my friend's. :confused:

Ill look into that though... thanks.

mattpj · 8 Feb 2007 at 00:19

I have the pc6400 GeIL 5-5-5-12 and it works fine on the same board.

Use memtest with all voltage and timings at stock to rule out faulty ram.

mattpj · 8 Feb 2007 at 00:21

I have the pc6400 GeIL 5-5-5-12 and it works fine on the same board.

Use memtest with all voltage and timings at stock to rule out faulty ram.

Thats the only advice i can offer you my good man, I hope you can get it running without having to return it!

topgun06 · 8 Feb 2007 at 00:24

Yeah, my mate has had a bad day, that would be the last things he would want to happen.

Ok ill give memtest a go tomorrow and hope for the best, thanks for the help.

topgun06 · 8 Feb 2007 at 17:48

Ok, so ive tired memtest for 3 and a half hours and no errors or problems at all.

i retried installing windows and i get this message:

"Line 684 of the INF file \i386\txtsetup.sif is invalid. Setup casnnot continue."

Is the XP disk a gonner?

The Laughing Ma · 8 Feb 2007 at 23:19

I googled your error and the single common fault between all the articles I found was the HDD. They were all Seagate units and the responses seemed to suggest issues with the boot sector of the HD.

One of the pages recommends you download the HD scanning utility from the Seagate and see if you can burn it to a bootable CD and then run that.

http://www.seagate.com/support/seatools/