Hi all, bit of a long one here so I'll try to break it down as accurately as possible.
Hardware as follows:
750W Dual rail PSU
ASUS M4A87TD EVO
AMD Phenom II X6 1090T
4GB (2x2GB) Patriot Gamer Series DDR3 1600Mhz CL8
Gainward GeForce GTX 560 810MHz 2GB PCI-Express HDMI
LG GH22 22x DVDRW
Samsung 1TB Spinpoint F3 7200rpm SATA 3Gb/s 32MB
I assembled the PC, put in the XP pro (SP2) disk and loaded windows. Installed LAN driver and proceeded with the critical listed updates only (rebooted and repeated). Installed ZoneAlarm firewall, AVG Free and MBAM. Ran a full scan with both AVG and MBAM and removed 1 trojan from the HDD. Then downloaded the latest GPU driver from nVidia.
I then ran the ASUS BIOS update through windows and rebooted. I then installed "Joint Operations: Typhoon Rising". Upon running the game, the game would open a window that would close almost immediately. I checked the update history online, and found a few failed updates (sorry, I forgot to note them down - probably not an issue after what I did next). I tried Doom3 to see if there was a common issue with games, and yes indeed there was.
I decided to start from scratch, so I ran a disk wipe program that I have (7 sweeps - took 16hrs to complete). Ran XP installation again (not the quick format either), restarted the PC and the dreaded BSoD appeared at the "installing windows" part.
It was the IRQ less than or not equal to error, so I tried to re-run the installation with only one of the RAM sticks in... still failed, so I swapped to the other stick... still failing. I checked the BSoD codes and found that they could be indicative of a damaged HDD.
I removed the HDD and placed it into my other PC and installed windows onto the HDD with no issues at all.
I replaced the HDD back into the new PC and it BSoD's on the XP splash screen just before windows opens... to make sure that there weren't any PC specific installation files saved on the HDD, I ran the install on the new PC and again, the BSoD occurs at the "installing windows" part.
As the BIOS was the only other thing changed, I installed the latest BIOS from ASUS using the EZ flash utility and a clean formatted USB stick. lo and behold, it still crashes at the same point during windows installation.
The copy of XP I have is good (currently running another PC with it).
I used an ESD mat and wrist strap during assembly and any point when I removed anything or put my hand into the case.
I've used a fluke to check the PSU rails, and they're all stable under load
I've re-seated every connector on the motherboard, GPU, HDD and DVD.
The unit hasn't been switched on without an inline surge protector.
I've checked and rechecked the layout of all of the jumpers on the motherboard.
Any help or ideas would be greatly appreciated
Hardware as follows:
750W Dual rail PSU
ASUS M4A87TD EVO
AMD Phenom II X6 1090T
4GB (2x2GB) Patriot Gamer Series DDR3 1600Mhz CL8
Gainward GeForce GTX 560 810MHz 2GB PCI-Express HDMI
LG GH22 22x DVDRW
Samsung 1TB Spinpoint F3 7200rpm SATA 3Gb/s 32MB
I assembled the PC, put in the XP pro (SP2) disk and loaded windows. Installed LAN driver and proceeded with the critical listed updates only (rebooted and repeated). Installed ZoneAlarm firewall, AVG Free and MBAM. Ran a full scan with both AVG and MBAM and removed 1 trojan from the HDD. Then downloaded the latest GPU driver from nVidia.
I then ran the ASUS BIOS update through windows and rebooted. I then installed "Joint Operations: Typhoon Rising". Upon running the game, the game would open a window that would close almost immediately. I checked the update history online, and found a few failed updates (sorry, I forgot to note them down - probably not an issue after what I did next). I tried Doom3 to see if there was a common issue with games, and yes indeed there was.
I decided to start from scratch, so I ran a disk wipe program that I have (7 sweeps - took 16hrs to complete). Ran XP installation again (not the quick format either), restarted the PC and the dreaded BSoD appeared at the "installing windows" part.
It was the IRQ less than or not equal to error, so I tried to re-run the installation with only one of the RAM sticks in... still failed, so I swapped to the other stick... still failing. I checked the BSoD codes and found that they could be indicative of a damaged HDD.
I removed the HDD and placed it into my other PC and installed windows onto the HDD with no issues at all.
I replaced the HDD back into the new PC and it BSoD's on the XP splash screen just before windows opens... to make sure that there weren't any PC specific installation files saved on the HDD, I ran the install on the new PC and again, the BSoD occurs at the "installing windows" part.
As the BIOS was the only other thing changed, I installed the latest BIOS from ASUS using the EZ flash utility and a clean formatted USB stick. lo and behold, it still crashes at the same point during windows installation.
The copy of XP I have is good (currently running another PC with it).
I used an ESD mat and wrist strap during assembly and any point when I removed anything or put my hand into the case.
I've used a fluke to check the PSU rails, and they're all stable under load
I've re-seated every connector on the motherboard, GPU, HDD and DVD.
The unit hasn't been switched on without an inline surge protector.
I've checked and rechecked the layout of all of the jumpers on the motherboard.
Any help or ideas would be greatly appreciated