P5Q BSOD on Boot when installing Sound Driver on Win 7 X64

Golden · 03 Feb 2015

Misterfied said:

I also changed the graphics card. No difference at all.

In that case, the problem must lie with the motherboard.

Misterfied · 03 Feb 2015

Golden said:

Misterfied said:

I also changed the graphics card. No difference at all.

In that case, the problem must lie with the motherboard.

Hi, yes, I think that's the problem too.

I always turn the computer off at night and re-boot it in the morning.

Just for interest sake, I re-booted into Windows 7 instead of 8.1 yesterday (where I had previously installed the Asus sound drivers and which had the night before caused a BSOD on boot) and it booted up absolutely fine!

I then attempted to install some graphics card drivers (after creating another restore point) and it crashed on boot. Restoring to the point where the Audio drivers were installed but the graphics driver wasn't, also caused a BSOD on boot! Remember, it was booting fine before the 'graphics card driver' install this time.

This morning, having left it as it was, and the computer being off for 9 hours or so, it booted fine into Windows 7 again!

I re-booted two more times just to check and it was still booting fine (Audio drivers installed).

This time I installed the 2009 ATK0110 APCI driver just for interests sake (after creating a restore point) and rebooted and it caused a BSOD. I restored to the point before the ATK0110 driver was installed (audio drivers installed) rebooted and BSOD on boot! Remember, prior to adding this driver I'd re-booted 3 times with the audio drivers installed with no problem.

It's so weird. On Windows 8.1 everything is rock solid using the same sound and graphics drivers given that apparently the motherboard is faulty?!

I have no idea why the 64 bit version of Windows 8.1 behaves perfectly, whereas the 64 bit version of Windows 7 does not (even though it USED to work absolutely fine). It's a real mystery.

There just doesn't seem to be a 'logical' reason for all this.

Misterfied · 03 Feb 2015

Well, this is embarrassing!

I'd already checked the memory using the Microsoft boot test which had passed with no problem.

Out of desperation, I downloaded Memtest86+ 5 and let it run while I was out for a few hours and came back to see over 1400 errors!

So, mystery solved I would assume?

All I need to do is find out which stick(s) to replace as not too sure how to interpret the results, other than it's pretty clear that on particular parts of the RAM the last 4 bits are ALWAYS corrupted.

Edit:

Well, it was quite easy to identify which sticks were faulty. I left the original Corsair RAM in and re-tested. That was fine. I moved the Kingston Hyper-X RAM into the slots previously occupied by the Corsair RAM and re-tested. The memory errors were at exactly the same addresses as earler today, so definitive proof that the sockets on the motherboard weren't to blame, and bad RAM.

Won't be buying Kingston RAM in future.

Only thing remains is whether Amazon will take them back under the Kingston 'lifetime' warranty? Anyone know?

I reinstalled Windows 7 X64 for the millionth time, installed all the drivers again and it's rock steady with 2 GB RAM installed on the SSD. Woohoo.

Thanks to all those that tried to help.