Requiring pc vista help.

[Caliga]

Hm, this is strange.  I mean, if you can get as far as even reading off the Vista DVD then your CPU, board, and RAM should be good.  I'm completely stumped.  I would have said for sure you had a bad HDD.

[Syt]

I set BIOS to boot from DVD first and pop the disk into the drive. During startup it requests to press any key to start from disk. Windows ascii load bar fills up, then switches to normal graphical loading bar. An empty default desktop with hourglass cursor appears before reverting to bluescreen a second or two later.

Interesting.  Can you get to the Windows setup screen, or does it crap out before that?

Before.

[Syt]

Hm, this is strange.  I mean, if you can get as far as even reading off the Vista DVD then your CPU, board, and RAM should be good.  I'm completely stumped.  I would have said for sure you had a bad HDD.

Could the hd controler (sata) be the problem?

[DGuller]

It may still be a bad hard drive.  I'm not 100% sure, but I think that Windows setup disk copies some files to hard drive before really executing, it doesn't run directly from the DVD.  Obviously if that's the case, then bad hard drive would still be a problem even when starting from DVD.

[DGuller]

Could the hd controler (sata) be the problem?

I wouldn't rule it out.  Back when I had my SSD-induced problems, they very much resembled a dying hard drive, but it turned out to be controller-related issue.

[grumbler]

I

nteresting.  Can you get to the Windows setup screen, or does it crap out before that?

Before.

Sounds like a memory fault to me.  As DG says, the windows setup does create a temporary directory to hold some files, but that should work with at least one HDD, whereas a memory fault would fail with either.

You have already tested this with less than full memory, but it might be worthwhile to check each memory stick in each slot, as there could be some combo of memory and slot that works.

[grumbler]

Could the hd controler (sata) be the problem?

Connect the drives with the parallel cables and see what happens.  I like this idea better than my memory one.

[Caliga]

It could be the SATA controller I guess, but I've never heard of individual components failing without preventing the board from POSTing.  What make/model of motherboard is this?

[Syt]

Grumps: thanks for the hints, I will try both tomorrow or the day after (going to movies with friends tomorrow).

Cal: Asus P5N-T Deluxe

[Darth Wagtaros]

That is strange.  It may be the controller, but I am more inclined to blame RAM at this point.

[Syt]

Alright, latest update.

1. I replaced the new rig's RAM with the 2x 1GB sticks from my old machine which was in working condition when I exchanged it against the new one. No change.

2. I hooked up my old system's hd after that (has XP installed). BIOS recognizes the drive but will refuse to boot from it (blinking cursor, like the other drives). Trying to run Win setup from disk nets the same result as usual: blue screen, pagefile error.

At this point I'm inclined to consider the interlude of "high end goodness" ended and revert to my old sytem, or to go for cheap low end rig and quit graphics intensive gaming.

[Caliga]

I guess it's got to be the board.

[Grey Fox]

Change the cables.

[Darth Wagtaros]

Buy a Dell.

[grumbler]

Alright, latest update.

1. I replaced the new rig's RAM with the 2x 1GB sticks from my old machine which was in working condition when I exchanged it against the new one. No change.

2. I hooked up my old system's hd after that (has XP installed). BIOS recognizes the drive but will refuse to boot from it (blinking cursor, like the other drives). Trying to run Win setup from disk nets the same result as usual: blue screen, pagefile error.

At this point I'm inclined to consider the interlude of "high end goodness" ended and revert to my old sytem, or to go for cheap low end rig and quit graphics intensive gaming.

See if you can get an RMA on the board from ASUS.  You've had this for less than a year, right?