Did you stress test the RAM overnight, use the steps in the the tutorial to also test the slots? RAM - Test with Memtest86+
I also asked you how close you came to getting a perfect baseline install. Without this we cannot be certain this is a hardware problem. If in doubt I would do it over following closely the steps in Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7 which are the same for retail.
Yeah I let it run for about 10 hours. It passed the entire test again with no errors. it was half way done with another run of the test. So far ive done the full memtest86+ 3 times all without errors. The install of the OS is about as clean as I can get following the guide you showed me. (Installed each time off a full wipe with parted magic, installed from the oem disc, only required drivers from the oem mobo disc were installed noting else to test and problem persisted)
Ive tried multiple different ram configurations to try and replicate fixing the problems, but have not been able to. I got in touch with ASUS today regarding the mother board they could not give any further suggestions other than things already done aside from doing an RMA on the board.
With the ram passing three full tests and testing boot up with each stick individually i think the ram is not the culprit.
I also tried changing the bios setting off auto and trying 1333 and 1600 freq for the ram as well as changing the voltage to flat 1.5 from auto and changing the timings off auto to 9-9-9-24. all did not fix the problem.
This would leave the mobo and the memory controller on the cpu untested. I dont know of any tests to directly test the memory controller on the cpu, but i found some threads after googling that lead to similar i7 memory controller defects. DO you know of any test for the cpu memory controller?
Im getting close to just doing the RMA on the board to rule it in/out since its covered under warranty and they said they would replace it.
Well if you installed drivers from the OEM disk then the installation is already suspect since that disk is outdated almost as soon as its pressed, and Win7 is a driver-complete OS which provides its own drivers that it wants in the installer and during all rounds of Important and Optional Windows Updates after install, after being sure to enable Automatically get recommended drivers and updates for your hardware (Step 3).
If you're saying that you only provided those drivers missing after all Updates were done (as it says clearly in the tutorial) then I'd compare them to the latest on the OEM Support Downloads webpage where the tutorial also says to get those. It says nothing about an OEM driver disk which is never current.
The only drivers I installed from the disc were usb to use mouse/keyboard and the network driver to connect to internet to download all the updates. All other drivers ive downloaded from the internet to get the latest driver. I went thru afterwards and installed the updated ones from asus for usb, but i doubt thats an issue considering those were the same driver the computer worked on for almost 2 years with no issues.
I just noticed i have been using memtest86 instead of memtest86+ the had the names written on discs wrong. Im re running the memtest86+ version 4.20 now and its been going for about hr and half now will let it run all night again.
Sounds good. Let us know how it goes.
Ok ran memtest86+ this time. all night all day it didnt get to 7 passes it did 3 but it ran for a long time lol as expected no errors again
problem solved!
my motherboard came in yesterday and I re installed everything all is well. So it ended up being the motherboard. Asus stated they repaired the board.
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