How can I fix these two technical problems I am having with installing my OS and GPU?

It’s hard to say. I don’t think the GPU would make much of a difference during an install, but something you may want to try is taking out some memory before trying to install again. If you’re at 4GB, bring it down to two and see if it installs then. If it doesn’t, swap the installed memory with what you took out and try again. If it eventually works doing that, then I’d say you have some defective memory.

A power supply isn’t something that either works or doesn’t work. There can be fluctuations in voltage and what not, and that can also affect how the computer is working. It can also damage components that are working. Most BIOS’ have a screen that shows what’s going on with the power supply. You may want to look at yours and see if you’re getting wild fluctuations (you’ll probably see some fluctuation anyway, but you’re looking for large changes). The power supply can also affect your GPU, especially if it takes a lead from it directly.

Failing that, it could be your hard drive has a problem with some bad sectors that need to be mapped out.

Mrentropy is correct on all counts, and when it comes to Windows 7 X64 (acutally any X64 version of Windows really) it can be notoriously flaky when it comes to installing with more than 1 stick of RAM installed. Consult your motherboard manual, and remove all the RAM sticks except one then you should be able to install Windows 7 fine. After it’s done installing and has loaded for the first time, shut it down and reinstall your RAM sticks.
As to your second problem; many Asus boards with onboard video are notorious for not being able to detect when you’re running a video card. So jump on into your BIOS at startup and under a section that is usually labeled “Onboard Devices” (also could be under some advanced tabs, really depends on which BIOS they are using) make sure “Onboard VGA” is turned off completely.
If that doesn’t solve your issues, I would seriously look at that motherboard as a lot of the info I have been finding while looking up your problems has to do with DOA (Dead on Arrival) M4A77T boards.
On a side note, your Antec 500W PSU should be more than enough to run this system, I have a Core2Quad with an HD 5850 on an 800W PSU and I’m only using about 480W @100% system load. Antecs are nice and reliable, do as Mrentropy said and check the BIOS to see what your +12V/+3.3V/+5V rails are all reading at, they should only fluctuate +/-0.05–0.30 from their set values.

Given the artifacts, I’d suggest that it’s important to check the graphics card. Do you have access to another GPU that you can borrow for a couple of hours? Do the RAM first, as It’s easier to check and more common for RAM to fail.

Be methodical – don’t switch tests halfway through.

Could you post up the STOP codes for some of the BSODs?

Thanks guys for the speedy responses, greatly appreciated.

At the moment it is midnight so I do not wish to do any tinkering with the computer at the moment until tomorrow. I had already looked at the 12V/3.3V/5V rails today, and they were fine with no insane fluctuations. But is this accurate for when the GPU is on full load? I am thinking (and I may be wrong in thinking since I am a novice) that when trying to load the accelerator the PSU could be struggling and just cancels the operation because of lack of voltage. The crappy thing is I cannot think of a way of testing this except for swapping PSU and I do not have a spare unit larger than 500W. The support say I need over 450W, but I do not know whether 2–3 years of use would have degraded the PSU over 50Ws. As I said it is quite dusty on the fan itself so it could be a possibility.

I shall try the RAM thing that you mentioned and tell you what happens tomorrow. I shall also try that setting in BIOS for the VGA.

@Mrentropy How do I map out a faulty hard drive?

@the100thmonkey I only wrote down the first error’s STOP code when I ran it earlier. Not sure how helpful it is alone, but I shall post it anyway plus anymore if the RAM fix doesn’t help. It may not be 100% accurate, in fact I did not bother count the number of 0s. If they are incredibly important I shall be more careful next time:

BAD_POOL_CALLER

STOP: 0×000000C2 (0X0000000000000007, 0×0000000000001097, x0.0000000073002E, 0XFFFFF88001204870

storport.sys – address FFFFFF88001204870 base at FFFFFF88001200000 base

@Ame_Evil If your hard drive came with a disk of some kind, that’ll usually have a utility on it to do that. Otherwise, you’d have to run it on some version of Windows and do a Checkdisk or Error Check thing on it and have it check for bad sectors.

@mrentropy I do not remember it coming with a disc, so I shall have a quick look through the pile of boxes I have. Where could I find one of those programmes?

If you can use a computer to create a CD you can this.

I generally like to keep a CD or USB stick with Parted Magic on it for checking out hardware. One of the things it can do is test a hard drive for problems, and it can also test RAM. It can also do a lot more since it is a full live Linux distro.

The link @mrentropy posted for the Ultimate Boot CD also works so it’s really a matter of personal preference, but I find it a little more limited for stuff other than testing. Still, UBCD’s simplicity may be an asset for you, so try that first. No need for a full garage when all you really need is a simple screwdriver;)

@jerv I am having trouble finding my USB stick. How large is the file out of interest in case it can fit on a smaller one I have lying around. Also I don’t suppose it would run on an external hard drive?

@Ame_Evil I have it on my old 512MB, so it isn’t too bad (actually, the latest version is 111 MB). Still, there is a special voodoo ritual to get it onto a USB stick (UNetbootin is probably the simplest way ) so you may want to jsut burn it to CD if possible, at least for now.

I am not sure if it will work on an external hard drive, bit it might. I’ve never tried it or heard of it being done; most people (myself included) have an ample supply of CD-Rs and/or USB sticks so they don’t need to.

Ok I decided to send the GPU back based on the fact that I can get the HD4890 for the same price and it should be much better. When it arrives I shall try what has been discussed in here and let you know what happens.

I have also bought the 650W Corsair while I am at it and selling this 500W on. The reason being is that I read on http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1086/8/ that the GPU takes up over 350W at full load and I just want to make sure I have more than enough power.

At least now if I get the same problems I can narrow it down to not being due to the GPU nor PSU. :D

That’s a good idea, it’s always better to have more than less when it comes to a PSU. And the HD 4890 is a much faster card than the HD 5750; and you only really lose the advantage of having DX 11, which isn’t a big problem anyways because the HD 5750 is not that great at running the new API lol. The HD 4890 is a real gaming card, the 5750 is more of a budget gamer card.
Good luck and keep us posted. :D

Ok the GPU had been removed and sent back. I installed the new GPU today and uninstalled all the drivers. My problem now is that when I restart the computer it shows “No Signal” after the Windows XP loading screen and doesn’t show the desktop afterwards. Pretty impossible to install new drivers with that o_O.

I wish they’d stop screwing with the model numbers. As far as I’m concerned, the model with the higher number should be better. Like, GeForce, GeForce 2, GeForce 3, etc. It blows my damn mind when they come out with, as an example and not necessarily the case, a 240GTX that’s not as good as a 9800 GT.

Anyway, @Ame_Evil I’m assuming your new card has two outputs for video? If so, did you try swapping them?

@mrentropy Nope. But I have removed one stick of ram and now can get Windows 7 to install :D. Hopefully the screen will work afterwards so I can install the new GPU drivers. Mad lurve to everyone if that is the case.

Err if my RAM caused an error in installing Windows 7 will it cause other errors? Does this mean they are put in the wrong slots?

@Ame_Evil Sweet! First step. It might be bad memory. I would suggest putting all the memory back in and running a time consuming memory test. A number of Linux live CDs have a memory checking program. I wouldn’t run anything from inside Windows to check it.

Ok I plugged the RAM back in and now it is cycling through trying to start windows but getting no further than the “Starting Windows” screen for 1 second before restarting the whole process. I have also tried sticking it in another slot on the mobo but the same problem occurs.

Removing the RAM allows windows 7 to load. So I guess that stick is defective? Or am I missing an important ritual to install the extra stick of RAM.

Also is it safe to install the GPU drivers now despite this?

I’d say it’s a memory problem. Or a problem with the slot on the motherboard.

Just tried installing the second (deemed defective) stick in the first slot removing the working stick. Get the same problem as if I tried using 2 sticks.

Ok Windows 7 seemed to be unstable the first 5 or so times I started it up, but seems to be more stable now besides some little things (such as Bittorrent install failing but I have that working again). Is this natural when installing a new OS? For example some of the problems were that it would open random pages (like the help page) and when I tried to click “all programs” it would flicker ultra fast.

I have filed a returns thing for the RAM and hope to get that replaced, and am going to test the GPU soon to see if it works fine.

Thanks guys for the RAM tip. And thanks for the advice in general :).

@Ame_Evil I’ve never had those kinds of problems, even installing with a motherboard loaded with 4GB.

And yer welcome :)

Bad DIMMS *suck!

@Ame_Evil There is actually a set way to install matched-pair dual channel RAM sticks. If you install them in the wrong slots, you will run into errors. From what you’re describing you are only using two sticks in a four slot motherboard. You can’t install the sticks willy-nilly into any slot, they have to go into set slots. Meaning for your dual channel setup to work correctly, you need to populate DIMM_1 & DIMM_3, which in the case of your motherboard is the two light blue slots. If your RAM is still causing issues in the configuration, then yes it’s no good OR your BIOS is setting your timings completely wrong which doesn’t happen very often.
Been reading over the design specs on your motherboard and it’s reminding me why I don’t like Asus’ designs anymore.

@ApolloX64 Ah, that is one combination I hadn’t tried as i’ve always been keeping one in the first slot which I believe is black. I shall try it later and tell you the results. I still don’t understand why one RAM stick would work in the first slot but the second wouldn’t though unless if the second one was somehow faulty.

@Ame_Evil Yeah, but if you can run on a single stick and then try a different stick in the same slot (which should be DIMM_1) and fail, well, you have a bad stick. Of course, if you try two sticks and put the second one in the wrong slot then it may act like a bad stick even if it’s good.

Once you have two working sticks, then you play the color-matching game to fully enable dual-channel memory and avoid errors, but in the mean time you should just worry about making sure all of your stuff works first.

Again, that is why I like having a live CD or USB stick; memory tests.

FYI, the first build is always a bit tricky, but the next one will be pretty easy, and after a while it’s a piece of cake.

Unless your me. Then you end up with one weird problem that you can never fix no matter how many systems you build or even re-arrange. In my case, it was the hard drive light. I’ve built many systems for many people and those all worked flawlessly, but out of all the systems I’ve built for myself, only one ever had a working hard drive light. Well, the light always worked, but for some reason it would never go on.

@mrentropy In my experience, plugging an unkeyed connector (like those for the front panel lights of many cases) on a LED into a DC circuit will wind up with reversed polarities (and thus no light) 90% of the time.
Or are you not familiar with the “50–50-90” rule? Personally, I get around it by spending a little time figuring out which way it’s supposed to go and then plugging it in backwards :D

@jerv Honestly, I tried it every which way. I believe that the only reason why my current one is working is because I had the HD light acting as the power light. When I changed my motherboard I just kind of managed to get it workng.

Yeah this first build was fun, depressing, annoying, and a lot of work. I am happy with this even though I went way over my budget to £650 including monitor. But it is pretty much perfect for me, although I haven’t tried any high-end games out to actually test the graphics card. Alien swarm, Sim3 and Spore work perfectly at max resolution which is new for me since i’ve only known laptops and family computers with the worst graphic cards imaginable. It’s a nice change to actually be able to play anything I want.

I am sort of glad the graphics card had those errors as it gave me a chance to get the HD4890 which runs like a beast even before OCing it. But again I need to check higher end games out before I can truly madly deeply love it.

So for anyones interest, the remaining problems I have (which should be fixed soon):

- 2gb of RAM is defective and need to be replaced; silly supplier said they would contact within 24 hours but I have heard nothing
– scratch on the case (lol). should be able to cover up with black paint or black perma marker
– 3 fans are not connected since I couldn’t plug in any of the 4-pin molex into the fan controller. hope to get a friend to fix that
– also when plugging in the new corsair 650W psu (which caused the above problem as I couldnt’t reconnect the fan controllers) I unplugged the temp controller by accident and didn’t know where it came from. not a big deal since the temperature things were wildly inaccurate so tbh I might not even bother with them.

At the moment the only thing holding this machine down is our wireless internet :D.

<so happy>

Good to hear it all worked out for you. You will be very happy with that HD 4890 they are one hell of a card even after the release of the 5800 series. Try not to go too OC happy with it tho, they run hot enough as is.

@Ame_Evil If you aren’t at least tempted to shoot heroin into your eyeballs by now then your first build went better than mine :D

@jerv – YES! except it was my second build.

@Ame_Evil – the sensors aren’t inaccuarate (in BIOS anyway), the software is (in Windows anyway) – for programs like speedfan, you need to apply the correct profile before the readings make sense.

@the100thmonkey Err these are attachable sensors that show a temperature on the Hades case. I don’t think I can get them on the chips to get an accurate reading. And when I placed them on the heatsink they were 5 degrees out. Although I can probably just boost the recording by 5 degrees I don’t think I would ever use them when I can just use software as even you mentioned.

@Ame_Evil I only used my case sensor to monitor case temps since my mobo already had sensors for the CPU. I swear, there were a couple of times that the only reason I didn’t brick that thing was because of the user-configurable audible alarm and thermal cut-off. That meant that instead of melting stuff, I had a few moments of loud “breedling” and if the temps rose another 10F/5.5C it’d just bail out and cut off.
Most mobos have the thermal cutoff, but I’ve seen few that have an audible alarm beforehand or allow you to set the temperatures yourself.

@the100thmonkey The first computer I tried to mod was a Mac Plus. Just getting the case on those open without the special tool that Apple only let dealers have and without destroying it was… interesting.
On a related note, my roommate is no longer allowed in a certain Apple store after asking a question they couldn’t answer; “How do you open the thing? You know, for upgrades?”.

@Ame_Evil – well, where are the sensors attached? Are they showing you on-die temps? The fact that they’re attachable means nothing unless you know what is being monitored, what the temperatures mean and what the acceptable temperature ranges are.

@jerv – that’s why Apple are the greatest computer company in the world. It’s so secure, you can’t even open the fucker.~ :D

Hello Ame_Evil
I think I can help you but you should print out the instructions and read all of them before you start the installation.

now don’t forget that you must have the motherboard drivers ready once windows is installed and install them before you update your Windows Experience Index score. As for your cmos/bios you have two ways to set it to default settings. One is to enter your bios and use one of your f-keys to set it to default. Two is to turn off the computer and unplug the power cord and remove the bios battery then turn the computer on for about ten seconds and then turn it back off and unplug the power cord and reinsert the battery, now your bios is set to default. Before I forget it may be a good idea to partition off say 200gb for your operating system and install windows 7 there. I personally don’t think you have a problem with your hard drive or motherboard.

Sometimes you may have a problem with installing Windows 7 with more than 2 GB of RAM installed on some older motherboards. If you have this problem, then you should install Windows 7 with a maximum of 2GB of RAM installed and add the rest of the RAM after Windows 7 is fully installed. You may need to flash your motherboard BIOS with the latest version to support more RAM like this. (WARNING – DO NOT FLASH THE BIOS if you do not know what you are doing. Please ask for help instead. One mistake can kill your motherboard permanently.)
• Before doing this clean install, you should download and save all of your device drivers to DVD, or some other media, to have them handy to make setting Windows 7 up easier later. Sometimes using the Vista drivers in Windows 7, you will need to use Compatibility Mode on the driver for it to install.

Windows 7 Minimum Hardware Requirements:
NOTE: For more information on this, see: Windows 7 system requirements
• 1 GHz 32-bit or 64-bit processor
• 1 GB RAM for 32-bit Windows 7 OR 2 GB RAM for 64-bit Windows 7
• 16 GB available hard disk space for 32-bit Windows 7 OR 20 GB for 64-bit Windows 7
• Graphics card or chip that supports DirectX 9 with 128 MB memory (to have Aero theme enabled)
• DVD-R/W drive
• Internet or phone access to activate Windows 7.

Here’s How:
1. Boot the computer from your Windows 7 installation DVD.
NOTE: Make sure that the CD/DVD drive is selected first in the boot order in your BIOS settings. Usually it is by default.

2. When prompted, press any key to boot from the installation DVD. (See screenshot below)
NOTE: You will only have about 8 seconds to press this key. If you miss it, you will have to restart the computer.
3. Set up your language preferences and click on the Next button.
4. Click on the Install Now button to start the installation.
5. Check the I accept the license terms box and click on Next.
6. Click on the Custom (advanced) option.
7. Select the hard drive or partition that you want to install Windows 7 on and click on the Drive Options (advanced) link.
NOTE: If the hard drive or partition that you have selected is unallocted, then you can just click on the Next button instead and go to step 9 since it is blank.
WARNING: You may not have the Drive options (advanced) option unless the installation is done at boot, and not running the installation from within your current OS.
8. Select a hard drive or partiton that you want to do a clean install of Windows 7 on, then click on the Format option to format the hard drive and click on the Next button.
NOTE: If you have your hard drives in a RAID setup, then connect your USB key with the RAID drivers on it, click on Load Driver, select the folder on the USB key that contains the RAID drivers to install them. Afterwards, your RAID drives will be available to select from to install on Windows 7.

Tip
For the Drive options (advanced) –
• If you have more than one partition on this hard drive and want to get rid them to make one big drive again, then select a partition and click on the Delete option for each partition. Now do step 8.
• To shrink an existing partition to create another partition to install Windows 7 on instead, select the partition you want shrink and click on the Extend option. Type in how much in MB (1 GB = 1024 MB) that you want to shrink it by. Now select the new extended partition and do step 8.
9. The installation of Windows 7 will now begin.
NOTE: During the installation process, your screen may flash and computer will restart a few times.
10. After the final restart, you will see this screen for a moment.
11. Type in any user name that you want for your default administrator account and any computer name, then click on the Next button.
12. Type in a password you want for your default administrator account. Type it in again to confirm it, then type in a hint for your password. Click on the Next button.
WARNING: The password will be case sensitive. The hint will be seen by all users on the computer, so do not type your password as the hint.
NOTE: If you do not want your your user account password protected at this time or do not want to have to type in a hint, then leave this blank and click on the Next button. You can create a password later for your user account in the Control Panel User Accounts after installing Windows 7 without having to type in a hint.
13. Type in your Windows 7 product key number.

14. Uncheck the Automatically activate Windows when I’m online box unchecked, then click on the Next button. (See screenshot below)
NOTE: You can activate Windows 7 later after you make sure it is running properly. If you chose to automatically activate Windows 7 online when you set up your computer, automatic activation begins trying to activate your copy of Windows three days after you log on for the first time.
15. Click on Use recommended settings to allow automatic Windows Updates and proper security settings.

16. Select your time zone and set your time and date settings, then click on the Next button.
17. Click on your computer’s correct network location type location to select it and have the settings for that location automatically applied.
18. Windows 7 will now prepare your desktop to startup.
19. Install all of your device drivers, then Windows Updates.

20. Refresh your Windows Experience Index (WEI) score.

21. When done, all you will need to do is to activate Windows 7.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/263-windows-experience-index-update-refresh-score.html
How to Update or Refresh the WEI Score in Windows 7
Tip
In Windows 7 the WEI score ranges from 1.0 to 7.9.

The WEI log file is located at: C:\Windows\Performance\WinSAT\winsat.log
Warning
You will need to update your WEI score after you have installed Windows 7, and have a minimum of 2.0 in both Graphics & Gaming graphics in order to have the Aero features enabled.
Here’s How:
1. Open the Control Panel (All Items view).
A) Click on the Performance Information and Tools icon.

B) Go to step 5.
OR

2. Open the Start Menu.

3. Right click on the Computer button, and click on Properties. (See screenshot below)
NOTE: You could also just press the Windows Key + Pause/Break key to open System Properties.

4. Click on the System rating is not available, Windows Experience Index, or Your Windows Experience Index needs to be refreshed link. (See screenshots below)
NOTE: The left screenshot is to score the WEI for the first time, the middle screenshot is to just update the WEI, and the right screenshot is to refresh the WEI usually after a change in the hardware or certain drivers (ex: video).
5. Click on the Rate this computer button, Re-run the assessment link, or Refresh Now button.
NOTE: The left screenshot is to score the WEI for the first time, the middle screenshot is to just update the WEI, and the right screenshot is to refresh the WEI usually after a change in the hardware or certain drivers (ex: video).
6. You will now see this status window.
NOTE: To get the best score possible while the WEI is updating, it is best to let the computer sit idle with nothing else opened or running in the background.
7. When finished you will see your updated WEI base score. (See left screenshot below step 5)

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/3408-activate-windows-7-online.html
Manually Activate Windows 7
1. Open the Control Panel (All Items view), and click on the System icon.
A) Go to step 3.
OR

2. Open the Start Menu, and right click on the Computer button and click on Properties.

3. Under the Windows activation secton at the bottom, click on the 30 days to activate. Activate Windows now link.
NOTE: If you did METHOD ONE above, then you will see 3 days to activate. Activate Windows now instead.
4. Select the Activate Windows online now option.
5. If prompted by UAC, then click on Yes.

6. Type in your valid Windows 7 product key number, and click on the Next button.
NOTE: You will not see this screen if you have entered your product key number during the Clean installation or Upgrade installation of Windows 7, or if you did METHOD ONE above.
7. If successful, click on the Close button.
8. Windows 7 is now activated and genuine.
NOTE: Genuine Windows is a recurring process that checks your product key is being used with the hardware it was paired with during activation.
If online activation fails, then try to activate by phone instead.

Go to the below website to fix your accelerators and Direct3D test problem.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/191660

these are your drivers if you don’t already have them
Sapphire ATI Radeon HD5750 Graphics Card
http://eu2.sapphiretech.com/archive/gm/drivers/10-4_xp32-64_ccc_lang2_634082758831596250.zip

motherboard drivers
http://support.asus.com/download/download.aspx?SLanguage=en-us

note
Microsoft DirectX is a collection of application programming interfaces (APIs) for handling tasks related to multimedia, especially game programming and video, on Microsoft platforms. Originally, the names of these APIs all began with Direct, such as Direct3D, DirectDraw, DirectMusic, DirectPlay, DirectSound, and so forth. The name DirectX was coined as shorthand term for all of these APIs (the X standing in for the particular API names) and soon became the name of the collection. When Microsoft later set out to develop a gaming console, the X was used as the basis of the name Xbox to indicate that the console was based on DirectX technology.[1] The X initial has been carried forward in the naming of APIs designed for the Xbox such as XInput and the Cross-platform Audio Creation Tool (XACT), while the DirectX pattern has been continued for Windows APIs such as Direct2D and DirectWrite.

Direct3D (the 3D graphics API within DirectX) is widely used in the development of video games for Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Xbox, and Microsoft Xbox 360. Direct3D is also used by other software applications for visualization and graphics tasks such as CAD/CAM engineering. As Direct3D is the most widely publicized component of DirectX, it is common to see the names “DirectX” and “Direct3D” used interchangeably.

Direct3D 9Ex, Direct3D 10 and Direct3D 11 are only available for Windows Vista and Windows 7 because each of these new versions were built to depend upon the new Windows Display Driver Model that was introduced for Windows Vista. The new Vista/WDDM graphics architecture includes a new video memory manager that supports virtualizing graphics hardware to multiple applications and services such as the