Sudden hardware incompatibility on clean re-install?

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  1. Posts : 10
    Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
       #1

    Sudden hardware incompatibility on clean re-install?


    I just built my first rig a week or so ago. I'm not the most experienced troubleshooter.

    Intel i7 920, not currently overclocked
    Asus P6T LGA
    XFX Radeon 5770
    G.Skill 3x2GB DDR3 1600
    Corsair TX 750watt PSU
    A single SATA WD Caviar Black 640GB
    A single SATA Lite-on CD/DVD burner

    Building went just fine- everything posted right away. I set up a Windows 7 Professional 64-bit and Ubuntu 9.10 dual boot. Two partitions for the two OSes, and a third for general storage. My copy of Win7 was purchased from my university's webstore, and the .iso burned to DVD using ImgBurn on a slow speed. The installs went smoothly, everything operated well for about a week.

    I started to get some error message about win32kernell.dll being messed up. I thought I might have let AVG move something it shouldn't have. Then on a reboot, I got the "Windows was unable to start" jazz and the repairer, which eventually let me back into the OS, which was still not running smoothly, same error. I didn't have much installed on the machine yet, and decided to just do a new clean install from my install disk rather than mess with it.

    Win7 reinstalled smoothly on its partition, if slow, and it seemed alright again for about a day. I then started receiving errors about installers not being able to run properly, and then on reboot, Windows was unable to start again. The repairer got me into the OS, but Windows Explorer was crashing every three seconds and it was unfortunately rather fubared.

    Tried to clean install again and got right up to the end before getting a message that Win7 could not set up on my hardware.

    The hardware seemed to work fine once, so has something failed recently, and how should I go about testing? If not that, please share. I could try completely reformatting the entire hard drive, not just the Windows partition, but I don't know if this would do any good. If I'm doing something terribly newbish, I apologize for my ways!
      My Computer


  2. Posts : 5,807
    Windows 7 Home Premium x64 - Mac OS X 10.6.4 x64
       #2

    Was there any applications that you installed on both installations of Windows 7 you have performed? What other common things did you do between the two (such as adjusting any settings)
      My Computer


  3. Posts : 71
    Win7
       #3

    Please completely uninstall AVG. It is the worst problem causer, poor performance causer and bsod causer of all Windows software.

    After, you will be happy. Do not just disable as that will not help.
      My Computer


  4. Posts : 10
    Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
    Thread Starter
       #4

    I installed AVG the first time, but after the first re-install, I put Avira on instead, so that is already off my system. I'd never had any problems with it before, but I don't think I'll be going back.

    I barely had anything installed after the first reinstall... pretty much only Firefox, uTorrent, VLC, AIM, Avira, video driver, and wireless card driver. The only setting I messed with both times was power management, just telling it not to sleep. I hadn't gotten that much of a chance to mess with it.
      My Computer


  5. Posts : 71
    Win7
       #5

    For the types of errors you're getting, I'd go ahead and uninstall Avira too, to test. It's the likely cause.
      My Computer


  6. Posts : 5,807
    Windows 7 Home Premium x64 - Mac OS X 10.6.4 x64
       #6

    ravenhaired said:
    I installed AVG the first time, but after the first re-install, I put Avira on instead, so that is already off my system. I'd never had any problems with it before, but I don't think I'll be going back.

    I barely had anything installed after the first reinstall... pretty much only Firefox, uTorrent, VLC, AIM, Avira, video driver, and wireless card driver. The only setting I messed with both times was power management, just telling it not to sleep. I hadn't gotten that much of a chance to mess with it.
    It almost seems to scream a hardware problem because I just can't see how a clean install would go array just like that when you haven't done anything nad the apps you have installed don't seem to be the culprit...
      My Computer


  7. Posts : 10
    Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
    Thread Starter
       #7

    At the moment, I can't boot into my OS, and the clean install failed. Even when I last could, I'm not sure I could with Windows Explorer crashing constantly...

    EDIT: That's what I was thinking, but do you have any advice on what might be the likely culprit, or how to test? Thank you guys for this!
      My Computer


  8. Posts : 71
    Win7
       #8

    You can boot to safe mode + networking and try to uninstall the antivirus software from there.

    Keep hitting f8 at boot up to get the safe mode + networking choice.

    Use Dameware NT Utilities to delete the Avira services too.

    http://www.dameware.com/

    Add your machine to favorites if it's not already in Workgroup section in Dameware. Then go to services, delete services.

    While deleting, check the box to delete the drivers too.

    After, reboot to normal mode.

    If that doesn't help, boot to only safe mode and use device manager to uninstall the wireless driver. Again, check the box to delete drivers while trying this.

    Reboot to normal mode.
      My Computer

  9.    #9

    Do you have the GRUB bootloader for your dual boot?
      My Computer


  10. Posts : 10
    Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
    Thread Starter
       #10

    First time mashing F8, I got an "overclock failed" message instead. Retried after setting all my BIOS setting back to default, though I'm pretty sure they were already there.

    New screen on restart, a BIOSy looking thing that I haven't seen before telling me to select my boot device, which I selected as my hard drive.

    I missed the F8 window, because I'm awesome, and got 'Setup is completing services' then, 'Windows could not complete the installation. To install Windows on the computer, restart the computer.' Did so, same error.

    Then went back and got into the safe mode choices. After choosing 'Only safe mode' (didn't see your edit before that, sorry!) I got virtually the same error: 'Windows could not complete the installation in Safe Mode. To install Windows on the computer, restart the computer.'

    Any other tips or tricks?

    As to the GRUB loader, I did have it, but after the first reinstall, Windows took over and the option was not presented anymore. I hear this is normal? I had not taken any steps to get it back yet.
      My Computer


 
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