ASRock X79 & Ripjaws Z => BSOD

[Frescard]

I just built a new system, and get a BSOD as soon as Win7 boots (right when it says "Windows starting" and the four balls start flying around). I've tried booting from an XP installation DVD, and get the same there, once it goes into graphics mode.

Here's my hardware:

• MB: ASRock, X79 Extreme4
• CPU: i7-3820
• Fan: CoolerMaster Hyper 212
• RAM: G.Skill, F3-17000CL9Q-16GBZH
• GPU: Radeon HD3800 or HD5400
• DVD: LG 22X DVD Burner
• PSU: Corsair TX750

According to ASRock's compatibility lists, the CPU and RAM should both work.

All Bios settings are on Auto, and XMP Profile 1 is loaded (DDR3-2133 9-11-10-28 1.65V).

I tried the following things (based on recommendations from ASRock support and some relevant threads here), but none of them made a difference:

• DRAM Frequencies between 800 and 2133
• Increase DRAM voltage up to 1.702
• Set tRFC to 255
• Set CPU "EZ OC Setting" to "Turbo 4.2 GHz"
• Set "Active Processor Cores" to 1
• Set "Host Clock Override (BCLK)" to 125
• Installed Bios versions 1.60, 1.80, L1.53 (beta) & L1.62 (beta)

Memtest 4.20 ran for 16 hours without detecting any issues.
CPU, MP & SB temperatures are in the 40?C range.

I'm not an overclocker, so I may be overlooking something obvious.
Also, I'm not trying to push this rig to its limits — my priority is on stability.

[GSKILL TECH]

whoa.. those are some 'interesting' suggestions that I would not advise..

So.. you are unable to install Windows?

Try boosting VCCSA voltage a little to see if that helps.

Or you can use lesser modules like 1 or 2, install Windows, then plug the rest in.

Keep us posted.

Thank you
GSKILL TECH

[Frescard]

I have one harddrive that already has Win7-64 installed. If I try to boot from that I get a BSOD once the "Starting Windows" screen with the four balls comes up.
If I boot from an XP DVD it runs fine while it's in DOS mode, but then crashes to a BSOD once it goes into graphics mode.

As you suggested, I removed 3 of the 4 memory modules, but that had no effect.
I increased the VCCSA voltage to 1.201, but still the same as before.

[Tradesman]

The harddrive with Win7 came from another computer? Yea/No? If so you are probably having conflicts in Win7 as it wants to work with the old hardware....You can take a Win7 Install DVD and boot to it and do a system repair, which will evaluate the new hardware and load the proper basic drivers, then will (hopefully) simply have to reactivate Win7, which prob won't fly on the web, they will want you to call them and talk to someone, then you tell them your mobo died and you upgraded the hardware since you had to replace the mobo, and they'll give you a new activation code.

[Frescard]

Looks like I wasted my (and your) time for nothing...
Turns out the crash was caused by Windows after all!

I had tried the repair option before, but Windows never found anything to repair.
And since I didn't have a Windows installation disk (it was an online purchase, and I had never bothered to create a bootdisk for it), reinstalling it wasn't an option so far.
So for troubleshooting I had tried the XP install disk, but that crashed just like Win7, which made me think it must be a hardware issue.
But I finally got desperate, and created a Win7 bootdisk, and went through a new install with that, and now everything is running fine!

So happy ending after all!!!

(And thanks for the quick help!)

[Tradesman]

No problem, sorry about your troubles, but always glad to here another good ending