Vista - TOTALLY FRUSRATED -- Vista basically unusable

So, new build. Really excited, going for the whole hog. The specs are:

CoolerMaster Cosmos 1010 ESA
Intel E8500 Wolfdale 3.16 GHz
EVGA nForce 790i Ultra
EVGA GeForce 9800 GX2 1GB
2x 2GB PATRIOT DDR3
750GB Seagate 32MB Cache
ABS Tagan BZ 1300W PSU
Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi Fatal1ty

... and, of course, Windows Ultimate 64 bit. This is about my fifth build, and it went great: loaded up the OS and updated all drivers (using only 2 GB RAM), started (cautiously) loading up all my software, taking care to only load software that had 64 bit driver support, as far as I could tell. I am a graphic designer and creative director, so I use Adobe CS3 and Office and game a little. Use Skype very frequently.


First off, SoundBlaster had no 64 bit support (I have never had much confident in Creative), so I simply took out the card and thought I might wait or scratch it.

More importantly, the system freezes. Hangs. Stalls, what-have-you. Just stops and needs a hard reboot. Any sounds playing at the time would stutter like a broken cd. I tried many things and am not overclocking. Eventually, needing to get work done, I simply figured there wasn't enough 64 bit driver support and yesterday fresh installed the 32 bit Vista using the alternate DVD that came in the package. Unfortunately, the system is behaving in exactly the same way.

Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions at all? I am pulling my hair out and need a working system soon. Please? Pretty please?

Maybe RAM failure, do a MemTest, had the same problem with any OS (including XP) that my PC would just crash all of the sudden, problem : Faulty RAM stick.

Axon, thanks for the suggestion. I'll boot into safe mode with cmd and try that now.

Well, it won't get past .3% of available RAM tested before freezing in ANY mode that I have tried. Looks like that might bbe it, I guess?

Also try it with 1 stick a time, then you can find out which one it really is, because it may also be 2 sticks.

Have you tried it at stock CPU speeds?

He said he didn't overclock .

Well I just did a quick google and it says the stock speed for that cpu is 2.66Ghz not 3.16GHz as it states in the OP

E8500 eh, not E6500.

So it is I just skimmed the page lol