Widnows Vista Constantly Crashing

[citycm]

I have bought some 2nd hand computer parts and built a PC as follows:

Asus Maximus Formula Motherboard
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 CPU
4GB (2x2GB) OCZ Reaper 6400 Ram
2GB (2x1GB) Crucial Ballistix 6400 Ram
3 x 500GB Western Digital Hard Drives
480W Antec Power Supply

I have installed Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit on this system and installed the drivers from the Motherboard CD (although for some reason it won't install the sound driver).

The system doesn't seem to be as quick as I imagined but what's concerning me is that it crashes quite frequently - it's always something not taxing in the slightest (such as opening My Computer or trying to burn a CD).

Could this be something to do with a dodgy bit of hardware or is it more likely to be software/driver related?

Thanks

 

[Geckovich]

Was it a fresh (and legitimate) install of vista?

Do you have the latest drivers, GPU, sound, chipset etc?

Have you tried running with just one kind of RAM, ie just OCZ or just the crucial?

Run memtest to see if the memory is faulty.

Check HDD health.

Download and burn a linux live disk, if this runs ok then it is likely a software error, if this crashes it is probably hardware.

 

[citycm]

Thanks.
It was a fresh install. I have a legitimate version that I will be trying but have used the disc I tried previously and it worked with no problems.

I only have the drivers from the CD's as I couldn't get the Wifi card to install. Will also try just the one type of Ram.

How do I do memtest and check HDD health?

Thanks

 

[Geckovich]

You have to download memtest, burn it to cd then boot into that cd to run it.

For checking HDD health try the manufacturers website, they usually have free utilities that can do this.

What wifi card is it? I've had issues with a few so if it's one of those I may be able to help you with that.

 

[citycm]

You have to download memtest, burn it to cd then boot into that cd to run it.

For checking HDD health try the manufacturers website, they usually have free utilities that can do this.

What wifi card is it? I've had issues with a few so if it's one of those I may be able to help you with that.

Thanks, will download it while I'm at work.

The Wifi card is an Abit AirPace PCI-Express Card. The utility installs and I don't get any errors but it doesn't install the driver and when I open the utility it says no Airpace network adaptor was found (or something similar)

 

[linktoinsanity]

As previuously said, try using just one brand of memory and see what happens. Also, run memtest86+ (not memtest86 without the + as with 4GB memory or more you will get constant reboots).