Installation Crashes

The only problems I had with installing Win7 were fixed by just clearing the cmos and resetting everything back in bios. It's worth a try because it worked for me on two different machines.

Looking at your system specs with the Q6600 and 4GB Ram you might try bumping up the NB voltage in bios just a tad. It's been known to stabilize Win7 with 4GB Ram. Proof of concept in link below. Has also worked many times, this is only the most recent.

Windows 7 crashes

I realize these are both long shots but were running out of options here man LOL.

Try running a memory test to rule that out.
Memtest86+ - Advanced Memory Diagnostic Tool

MemTest86+, run for 8:38, 12 passes, no errors.

I'm still not sure what to be doing with these different chipset drivers, exactly. If you want me to try installing them during the installation (at the patition selection point), then I can find a load of drivers, but there are lots of them, all saying similar things about Intel SATA/RAID or something, but they only show up when showing drivers not compatible with the current hardware.

I doubt it's worth mentioning, but whenever I try to install the Intel Matrix Storage Manager, I get told my computer doesn't meet the minimum specs.

In case any of this information is helpful:

CPU-Z Readouts

The Q6600 Multiplier changes to 9x when under anything more than light use, taking the speed up to 2.4GHz per Core.

Any more help is really appreciated.

I have no problem with it being like that, infact it's quite useful, so unless you think it might help with the problem, there's really no need - I was just explaining the seemingly low clock speed.

You know what?

That did it.

It appears to have installed properly, the only change having been SpeedStep being turned off.

Jesus Christ. I'm going to try installing it again, just to be sure this wasn't a fluke, but it's running and appears to be doing just fine.

I'll report back in a bit with updates, but this could be it guys!

Guys, I owe you all a heck of a lot. If I can work out this rep thing I'll try to use it, but I just want to say thanks to everyone who suggested ideas or put it time to do some research for me.

I'll try to stick around on the forums if I have some time, but I'll probably end up being quite busy getting my system how I like it, back with all my programs.

Cheers, everyone.