Buying a Motherboard, (post build OS problems now 9.9)

Hey guys, it's Half-dude again, back from the silent zone. I hope you don't mind me showing up here just for computer advice, it's just I dont map anymore so there's not a lot more to talk about. Plus I know you guys, while harsh sometimes, give well thought out and honest opinions.

So I'm going to be upgrading my RIG soon. I kind of mostly want to upgrade to 64-bit Windows 7.. finally leaving XP I guess. But I figured if my OS is going to become registered to my CPU it'd probably be smart to go ahead and upgrade my CPU at the same time to avoid the hassle. I'll be upgrading from an AMD Athlon X2 3.0Ghz to a Phenom 2 X4 3.3Ghz. But you guys know how it is, you change one thing and it forces you to change another.. my motherboard doesn't support the AM3 socket so pphhhh..

So anyway I think I'm gonna go with this ASUS mobo here:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131647

As fate would have it I gotta get new memory too since I was dumb and got DDR 800 as it was just dying out evidently. So I thought I'd upgrade to this G.SKILL 8GB RAM due to it having a good rating and is said to be very compatible with lots of mobos in the comments.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231311

I was just wondering, I looked at the compatibility list on ASUS's site and that exact RAM isn't listed there. I know it's not a comprehensive list so that might be why.. I saw some other G.SKILL RAM listed there with model numbers very similar.. just not the exact ones I'm getting. I guess it's just a luck of the draw, but do you guys think they'd be compatible? Are any of you guys familiar with the brands? I've never used ASUS or G.SKILL products before.

On a side note, I passed both my A+ Certification exams. Passed the last one on Dec 29th.. one/two days before the rules changed to 'expires after 3 years' so WOOT.

I dunno about the ram but I have a question. Why would you buy a high end x4 when you could get an x6 for about the same price?

Seems to me if you're gonna upgrade, you should do so with a bit more future.

I dunno a lot about the x6's, but t seems to be a lot newer than the older x4's.

Since they both use the same mainboards it just seems more economical to me.

I couldn't find the processor you listed but this one is close.

Now look at this one.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

I have no idea how I didn't notice that, thanks for the link Orph, I might be changing it to that now haha. Here's the one I was looking at: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103894

Don't worry too much about compatible RAM. Its the manufactures way of blaming you if your mobo isn't posting. Heres an excerpt with Asus/Intel tech support a couple of times:

Asus: What RAM are you using?
Me: Im using X type of RAM
Asus: Let me check... nope thats not on the list of tested memory, please use compatible memory. That would be type Y memory.
Me: But it was posting with this X memory LONG before the loud pop and smoke that came from the mobo.
Asus: Ignore the pop and smoke, you need to use the right type Y memory. That will fix the problem.
*facepalm

As long as the company is reputable (G.Skill, while little tipsy is reputable, not like "Transcend Memories"). Just make sure the memory you get has a lifetime warranty on it (theres no reason not to have a life time warranty on memory).

I don't know much about AMD processors, but I would always opt for the one with a larger cache, you will see a performance bost with the extra 1mb of cache on the pricier processor.

And you can always call Microsoft to put your operating system licence onto another computer (by definition of new computer I mean, new mobo/processor), just say your old one melted down, or blew up, or your just re-installing the software. Microsoft doesn't really care, as long as the licence isn't cracked or the licence has been flagged as "cycling on the internet" microsoft will activate it for you, they want to keep you over going to Unix (MacOS/Linux).

Don't worry if it doesn't EXPLICITLY list the modules you're using. I mean, there's just too many. The ones they list are the ones they've explicitly tested.

What you need to look for, rather, is some information from the ram manufacturer to see chipsets/boards the ram is NOT compatible with. If you find nothing there and all the timings and sizes are correct then you shouldn't have much of an issue.

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

Thanks for all the help guys. : D

Maybe I'll past some build pictures up when I get my parts.

UPDATE:

Well I got my parts last Friday and installed that night. I had a little scare turning it on actually.. it's kind of embarrassing actually, I put my RAM sticks in separated by an empty slot.. instead of being inserted next to each other like they're supposed to be. I don't know what I was thinking, the slot colors just made it look like that was how they were supposed to be put in.

So now I'm just trying to get used to Windows 7, that's going smoothly I suppose. The biggest hassle of course it just reinstalling everything ya know?

Everything seems to be working fine, well cept for two problems. Crashing... myup.. but fortunately I'm pretty sure it's a software problem not my hardware. I did the Windows 7 memory test and it came out fine and I've already played a bit of Crysis. I'd figure putting the hardware under Crysis stress and not have it crash is a good indication it's not bad RAM or anything.

There's two different types of crashes I've had happen, if any of you guys are familure with them please let me know what fixed them for you ok?

The most rare crash is that the screen will turn off.. almost like the computer went into standby or something.. but I didn't tell it to. It's only happened twice I think and at just random times. I know it's not my monitor just turning off because of power saving or anything because pushing any keyboard keys and moving and clicking the mouse doesn't do anything. The only thing I can do is reset the system.. I don't know, maybe it's something with my video drivers? I'm using the most current ones from Nvidia.

The most common crash even weirder, I'm not %100 sure, but it seems to be tied to installing and/or downloading stuff. The first time it happened the computer was idling while downloading one of my games off of Steam. The most recent time it was right after finishing an install of a program off my mobo CD. This one isn't so much a crash as it is a freeze/lockup. What'll happen is I'll just be doing stuff and the computer will just freeze... mouse locks up instantly.. I can't even turn the capslock light on my keyboard on and off.. total lock up. The even weirder thing is that when it freezes like this my speakers pop! WTF right? It made me think maybe it was my soundcard driver. I had to download a special 64-bit version of my Creative driver from their website because my soundcard wasn't supported anymore. -_-; I've since disabled my soundcard in device manager and am now using my onboard sound.. I'll see if that fixes the problem or not. But still if any of you guys have had this happen let me know what you did to fix it ok?

I've looked on Microsoft's site but they really aren't very helpful.. even charging for phone support. I'm hoping some of you guys can suggest something for me to try because this crashing is really getting annoying, they're like one pimple on the perfect flawless face of a good Windows 7 first experience. : /

Thanks for the help guys.

half-dude said:
UPDATE:

The most rare crash is that the screen will turn off.. almost like the computer went into standby or something..

Take your video card out, and re-insert it. The issue you describe happens to me periodically and that's all I do. You either have some dust in it or its not seated properly.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

"Orpheus" said:
Take your video card out, and re-insert it. The issue you describe happens to me periodically and that's all I do. You either have some dust in it or its not seated properly.

Really? Ok thanks a lot Orph, I'll try that out!

Quick Question: Are you using the drivers provided by Windows 7? Or did you actually install drivers from your Motherboard's website? Its nice that W7 comes with a lot of chipset drivers, as well as LAN drivers, and even Video Card Drivers, however its best to go with the manufacture drivers to rule out problems.

Check the system event log. Right-click my computer, go to manage, go to event viewer, click on system, look for any Errors or Warnings. Read them. If you see any drivers crashing I would suggest updating those drivers. I had a similar problem with nVidia driver crashing on me (it would say nvklm has stopped responding, but was recovered). Problem was my video card was overheating, I RMA'd it for a new one, and it fixed the problem.

I also get random crashes in Crysis (passes all hardware tests I can throw at it - I repair computers for a living). It tends to happen after I've been playing for a long time and my video card gets pretty warm, I can reduce the crash rate if I up the fan speed to cool it off faster. Also recently I updated to nVidia's new drivers, and not I get random TF2 crashes. Sometimes with this new high end equipment you get crashes that just can't be prevented till the manufacturer releases stable drivers.

It may take a lot of iterations before they get something thats 98% reliable. Nothing is fool proof, it only gets better.

edit: Just read your paragraph about creative's sound card. Definitely the 64 bit driver for the sound card may be causing problems. SOMEWHERE on the internet Microsoft released a report about what causes the most crashes on computers, and it turns out that it was sound card drivers that were the biggest culprit of crashes, so definitely monitor that. I would also say that sound cards are pretty worthless these days, unless your an audio file, or your doing sound editing.

At Omegaslayer:

Thanks for all that, very informative man!

I also heard that Windows 7 did come with a lot of drivers. But when it cames to main drivers I'll always go with the manufactorer. I used the Chipset driver CD that came with the mobo, and like I said I downloaded my Nvidia drivers from their website. I was going to install my soundcard drivers with the original CD but windows said it wasn't supported anymore and recommended I look up something on the web. That's interesting what you said about sound drivers causing the most crashes, very useful to know that so THANKS.

The event log was one of the first things I tried.. it was like what the Microsoft support guys were telling people on the forums all the time. The ONLY thing that shows up is the report that 'windows was shut down abruptly possibly due to a crash and reset.' So nothing really helpful there unfortunately. I forgot to tell you guys I did the eventlog thing, sorry.

Like I said earlier, I currently have my creative driver disabled in device manager.. I'll probably uninstall it eventually, I just hope having it disabled is enough. But yeah surprisingly I'm not finding really any sound quality difference between what my card could put out and what my mobo's sound puts out, though I do miss the sound control my card provided and the different modes. I think the only reason I got a sound card is because I had heard that having a dedicated card for sound would take some load off the CPU and thus a little better fps..

As for temperature, I think I'm in the clear for that. I made sure to get a full-tower for this build since we have really got summers here in Kansas. It has two large fans right behind the Zalman CPU cooler fan so I don't think heat should be a problem, idle temps are around 28 degrees C and somewhere in the high 30s in load.

Also another thing I should probably point out is that as of right now I'm doing what Microsoft calls a "clean boot" which is selective start-up with msconfig. SO far I've been on my computer for about 3 hours with no problems. Granted I haven't gamed at all yet.. but I've yet to have any crashes in a game only while on the desktop anyway. I don't really like clean boot as my securty software isn't turning on as a result so I'll try to get things worked out asap..

I still can't really sake the idea that possibly my Win 7 will just fix itself up after it has a few days to auto-update.. we'll see.

Thanks again for the help guys.

FINAL UPDATE:

Hey guys,

Just wanted to give a last update. I've had my rig running for about 4 or 5 days with zero incident and intense gaming. I can say with about 90% confidence whatever problems were pleguing my system are gone. Maybe it was the autoupdating? Maybe it was the help you guys gave me. Either way, thanks a lot for your help and support it really means a lot.

This is, Half-dude , signing out..

Same Bat time. Same Bat channel.

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The best things in life, aren't things.