Windows 7: Corrupted motherboard welcome screen

So ~1 week has passed after upgrading motherboard and RAM, everything's been going great, except for one issue. Every now and then (it has happened like ~2/3 times), the motherboard welcome screen image gets corrupted, resulting in the PC failing to boot.

Now, this never happened to me with my old motherboard/RAM combo (ASUS M3A78-EM and Corsair XMS2 DDR2 @ 800MHz).

What could be causing this? are there any test(s) I could perform to make sure motherboard/RAM combo is working fine?

EDIT: I do have to admit though that I tried flashing the BIOS on the new motherboard, but right before flashing, I realized that the BIOS version that came with the motherboard was the same as the latest one on the ASUS website, so when I decided to cancel the process, the ASUS EZ Flash 2 application (ASUS' flashing utility) crashed, resulting in me performing a hard reset.

EDIT#2: I also have my RAM set to 1600MHz vs 1333MHz (the speed set by my motherboard as default, even though the RAM is 1600MHz native).

Sounds like you should try the BIOS flash again and let it finish, regardless of version.

~Lordbob

If the manufacturer says the board can only support 1333, then I'd say the board can only support 1333, no matter what the RAM can run at. Flashing the bios, even if its not a new version can solve problems if the BIOS has become corrupted (I just helped a guy with a corrupted bios two days ago).

The manufacture doesn't tell you it only supports certain RAM for the heck of it. They do it to let you know before buying, if you want something different, buy something different. What method did you use to increase the speed of the RAM slots?

Setting the 'AI Overclock Tuner' to 'D.O.C.P'.

I, personally, am against any kind of overclock, but I say do the BIOS flash first. If that fixes it, then you can keep your overclock, and not listen to me whine about why I'm against them, which will save us both time.

It didn't let me flash again.

Everything goes fine until RIGHT before the flashing begins (I'm able to browse through my different drives and stuff, etc), but once the message 'are you sure you want to flash the BIOS?' appears (after the utility has loaded the file), EZ Flash 2 just hangs/freezes.

Can you reset the BIOS, then try flashing it?

~Lordbob

There is a way to do it via USB but I've never done it, or helped someone do it. I can provide a link that tells you how to do it.

how to flash your bios with dos using a usb stick:

ASUS EZ Flash 2 let's me flash via USB.

Okay....do you need to do anything particular to do it, like having dos installed on the USB, or can you just stick it in?