Vista - Can't install Vista Premium 64bit

Just put my computer together, everything booted up nice my bios is detecting all my hardware and everything seems to be checking out nicely. I went to install my OS however and at the end of the windows is loading files screen BAM !

Black screen: With text something to the following.
Windows has a problem, new hardware or software may be the cause contact insert your windows install CD. Contact your admin if you don't have it.

After some research I found something about ACIP ? It's under bios and needs to be enabled apparently, so I did that. Windows started to run, I got the windows loading screen with the scrolling bar. BAM !

Blue screen of death.
Windows stopped itself before the computer was damaged if this is . . .
I am at work right now so I don't have the error code in front of me, so I will update that later today.

So I can't figure it out from here and decide to see if it's something REALLY wrong with my computer. I try to install vista home 32bit, it loads the first time and installs. I am now officially at a loss for what to try.

HARDWARE:
EVGA 123-YW-E175-A1 LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 750i FTW SLI ATX - Mobo
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz LGA 775 Quad-Core Processor - CPU
(8gigs) 2 X CORSAIR 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) - RAM
MSI NX8800GT 512M OC GeForce 8800 GT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express - GPU

Not sure if any of the other stuff is really relevant to problems I may be having.

the biggest problem really is that vista 32bit installs fine, 64 bit crashes before I even get to choose a language. And can't for the life of me figure out what would be causing it.

Remove one of your DDR RAM DIMMs and remove all nonessential hardware (like hubs and such) and try - a lot of people reported issues with having more than a single 2 GB DIMM of RAM installed when trying to install Vista x64.

Ok I removed all my ram but 2gigs and got windows to install. I updated all the drivers I could find etc. and reinstalled my other 6 gigs. Booted and it worked fine.

HOWEVER

I had forgot to install my driver for my sound card, so I installed that restarted and got the same blue screen again. Retried, same thing. So I brought the ram back down to 2gigs. Everything booted up fine, I shut down, reinstalled all my ram. And it booted fine. . .

It seems to keep doing it as well on system changes. I updated a patch for windows it required a restart. Apon restart crash, bring it to two gigs reboot fine. Shut back down, reinstall ram, boots fine. . .

Sounds like a bad stick of RAM, just because it's new doesn't mean it's 'good'!
Run Memtest86 on that stick.













Later Ted

I am at work currently and unable to perform the test but will do so later on in the day. Wouldn't a bad stick not register in the system, and or not work at all ?

I have never had a bad stick of ram before so I don't know, but the fact that a set routine of boot with 2 gigs, shutdown, install with all 8 gigs leads me to believe that the amount of memory is the problem more then the ram itself being bad. That may be inexpierence talking though ha.

As stated either way when I get home I will run memtest86 on each stick.

Do you have 4GB or 8GB, no matter test each stick individually and run at least one full pass on each.

Edit: Some have had problems installing 64-bit Vista with 8GB in, depends on theMoBo I think.



Later Ted

oh sorry I do have 8 gigs, 2 sets of the same 4 gig pairs.

Have you checked with your motherboard maker to see if they've released a bios update which solves the install with 4GB problem? To my knowledge, most have as this was a fairly common and annoying issue.

After reading your post here: http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.asp?m=484750 Is there a way for you to get SP1 on a disk so you can install it right after you install Vista? Seems you're always going through a Windows update process which may be messing up your install?

I'd run 2GB's, disconnect from the internet, install Vista, install SP1, install chipset drivers and see if that works?

I have updated my bios, would chipset drivers be in a different location then bios ? This is my first time running into an issue of this nature.

I have read in a few places that SP1 is supposed to fix some of the problems I have run into, I "think" SP1 has been installed on my computer though. The disc I used to install vista originally had SP1 as part of it, and the 50+ auto updates would have included sp1 I would think. However I have yet to see a single place on my PC that specifies I am using SP1, on my other windows computers it will usually say the service pack number next to the operating system. But on this newest install it doesn't, weather by design or it simply not being there I am not sure.

On my list of fixes to try when I get home from work:
1. Reinstall SP1 (unless some one can explain to me where I can look to make sure it's already in there / or isn't )
2. Check each stick of memory with memtest86
3. Prayer