780i Driver issues under Vista 64?

[jesman9]

Hi guys, first time poster here. I googled xfx forums and this is where I was lead...

I just built a new system;

xfx781 main board with an Intel Q6600, 4gb ram, dual 8800gtx's with vista 64

I won't go into my personal nightmare trying to even get vista 64 installed, suffice to say, i finally did get a what i thought was a stable install. Several reboots and all that. So then I loaded Crysis. The exe crashed and went to a clack screen. I figured I needed to update all my drivers from a website so I downloaded the newest drivers on XFX's page. Installed and rebooted.

Got a memory dump blue screen of death. I got v64 to successfully reboot by choosing the "Use last known good configuration" option from the DOS boot menu.

Does anyone know anything about this error and how I might fix it?

Thanks in advance for any help.

[jesman9]

I am now certain my issues are my 4gb of ram, and vista 64...

[Miles]

Early on there were some issues installing Vista 64 with 4 or more GB of RAM but these have supposedly been remedied. I run Vista 64 and have installed it numerous times with 4GB of RAM and never had an issue, but then I'm running an Intel based board as opposed to NVIDIA. We have a number of people here running 4GB with NVIDIA boards and Vista 64.

I would suggest it's possibly a bad stick of RAM or either RAM that the 780i doesn't like. There have been some problems with the 780i and certain brands of memory. It also might help us to help you if you listed your entire system's components.

Do you have 2 x 2GB sticks or 4 x 1GB sticks? The latter has been an issue with many boards.

[jesman9]

4 x 1 gb Kingston ddr2 pc2-8500 1066mhz 2.2 v cl5 5 5 12

I set the bios to unlinked 1066 and the voltage to 2.2v for ram and 1.35 for the FSB and processor. I believe these to be the correct settings for my components, as that is what it says on their respective boxes.

intel q6600 2.4 ghz quad 1066 fsb
dual 8800gtx's
xfx 780i
seagate sata300 700gb HD
Pioneer dvd
cooler master 1000w powersupply


I am currently at the point where I can get vista to boot 75% of the time ok. I have a dual boot setup with xp32 which seems to run just fine, never ever crashes. Vista64, is annoying. Could it be a voltage or memory setting? Auto setting the bios and such was less stable then the manual config i have now.

I really appreciate any insight to this matter. :)

[srpeters18]

I highly suspect it is related to your 4x1GB memory. Pull two sticks out (make sure you pull alternating sticks, so you still get dual channel) and try it then. Also, if you are running stock speeds on your processor with no overclocking you shouldn't need to raise the voltage that high. Most cases that processor will run perfect with less than 1.27 or so at stock, which will lower your temperatures significantly. Try the memory thing first, if that works, then you can start trying to lower your voltage. If you do both at the same time, you won't know if the memory thing fixed it but the voltage was too low. Also, with that memory and that processor you can leave it linked or even on auto at stock settings as they're both running at 1066 MHz

[jesman9]

Ya, the system is very stable with only two alternated 1gb sticks, in fact, it never crashes with 2 sticks. Is this common for 4x1gb setups? Is there better or different 4x1gb sticks i can get or should i just take it back and get 2x2gb? I would really like to have 4gb. I mean this is vista 64... I am really amazed at how hard it is to get a stable Vista system going. XP is a breeze.

Also, when you say I can just leave the ram linked on auto it will run at 1066mhz, even though it says 800mghz? I have to say that changing the memory voltage from Auto to 2.2v dramatically improved stability. It hasn't crashed the last 5 reboots. I also found that someone on the forums mentioned a specific patch... kb929677... if i remember correctly. Addresses system crashes with certain hardware configurations was the patch notes.

Thanksfor the cpu voltage and heat tip, I will bump it down now. Putting it back on Auto might be a good idea.

[Miles]

A fact of life is that almost no system will run as well with 4 x 1GB sticks as it will with 2 x 2GB. Which version of Vista 64 are you running? I'm running Ultimate and have never had an issue with Vista. Another fact of life is that many of the Vista problems are centered around NVIDIA based chipsets, I know that sucks.

Vista 64, when setup properly with the right equipment is just as stable if not more so than XP. I speak from experience as I own and use both. It's not quite as fast in benchmarks, but it's quickly getting there.

I'm thinking that from what you've stated already the problem is probably not Vista related as was confirmed when you dropped back to 2 x 1GB sticks of RAM. I would strongly suggest running Memtest on all of your RAM sticks and I bet you'll find some issues. If you want to keep 4GB and the 780i then I would also suggest you consider going with 2 x 2GB as opposed to what you currently have. Also make sure you have the most current version of the 780i BIOS installed.

Good Luck!

[jesman9]

Could you or anyone else recommend some incredible RAM for me that is uber compatible with this mother board and Vist 64? I will buy it. 2 x 2gb sticks is what I am after. :)

I would like to get the fastest, most stable ram I can that would make a difference.

If 4 x 1 gb sticks are poor performers, how do 4 x 2 gb sticks perform?

I can run crysis now, sometimes. With the Performance Utility from the website I can get 20-30 fps with all settings set to Very High running at a 1680 x 1050.

I am going to try it in XP 32 now. Vista64 and Crysis don't seem to play well together.

[jesman9]

What is SLI enabled Ram and where can i get some? Would it make a difference? I noticed the BIOS had a Disabled setting for SLI RAM.