Fresh Install, lots of problems, hangs/crashes

[NU Star]

Ok, here was my previously stable system:

• Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Conroe 2.4GHz LGA 775
• MSI P6N SLI Platinum LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 650i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard
• COOLMAX CUG-700B 700W ATX12V v2.3 SLI Certified
• Western Digital Raptor WD740ADFD 74GB 10000 RPM SATA
  HDD
  HDD
• NEC 16X DVD±R DVD Burner Black IDE/ATAPI Model ND-3550A - OEM
• ADATA 8 GB DDR2-800 (PC-6400) CL5 DIMM 4 x 2 GB
• Syba SD-VIA-5U 5-port (4+1) USB 2.0 PCI Card, VIA Chip
• Zotac ION PCI Express Graphic Card ION-GPU-A-E
• EVGA 640-P2-N828-A1 GeForce 8800GTS KO 640MB 320-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card

I got a shiny new Intel X25M 120 GB SSD and it has been causing me all sorts of problems. I initially tried to use Intel's Data Migration software to clone the main HDD, but this resulted in a system that hung and crashed badly. I didn't really try much to get it to work and just decided to do a clean install.

To facilitate the clean install, I took out all the USB devices, the extra video card, the PCI-e USB hub, and all the HDDs. The install worked ok, but I think it would still take a few minutes to get to the desktop, which was disappointing. Reinstalling the hardware has made things bad. I can get to the desktop somewhat stably, but it might take 30 minutes. I've been messing around with it for awhile, uninstalling and reinstalling drivers, tried resetting the BIOS settings, disabled legacy USB in BIOS. I've tried some other stuff and had some other problems, but I can't really keep track at this point and I'm not sure what's relevant. I'm willing to start from scratch but I've basically already done that, so I'm not sure what that will get me.

Currently I've unplugged anything unnecessary again, but I'm taking forever to get to the desktop. Help please!

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Hello NU Star, welcome to Seven Forums!


If you want to try another clean install, disconnect everything, all HDDs, USB peripherals, leave only a single monitor and the mouse & k/b all except the SSD and connect that to the #1 SATA port of the mobo.

Use diskpart to do a complete wipe of the SSD, then after the install finishes reconnect things back one at a time with plenty of restarts to let Windows absorb the changes to the system.

Be sure to post back with any further questions you may have and to keep us informed.

After you have copied out or made back-ups of the data you need to save to external media, use Step One of this tutorial at the link below to do a wipe (secure erase) to the entire Hard Disk Drive / Solid State Drive.

• Then if you do not want to create the new Windows 7 "System Reserved" partition use the outline in Step Two #2 to create, format and mark Active a single 100GB partition to do the installation to.
• If you do want to create the "System Reserved" partition use the outline in Step Two #3 to create, format and mark Active the System Reserved partition and then create and format the 100GB partition to do the installation to.

Either way, running the "clean all" then creating and formatting the partition(s) using diskpart will get you the best possible space to do a clean install of Windows 7 to; you can always extend the Windows partition to include the remaining unallocated space on the HDD / SSD or create additional partitions after the installation completes if you choose.

SSD / HDD : Optimize for Windows Reinstallation

DISKPART : At PC Startup

Do a Clean Install with a Upgrade Windows 7 Version

 

[NU Star]

Thank you for the advice. I followed the steps and did a clean install.

I was meticulous with the hardware installs. There was some initial stalling, which seemed to be fixed by updating the chipset and video card drivers. There was some wonkiness with getting the second graphics card working.

Everything was installed and things seemed stable, but now that I'm installing software I've been getting some freezing when opening applications sometimes. Right now everything thing seem OK, but I'm wary. I'm running the driver verifier to see if that turns anything up right now.

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Are you doing plenty of restarts between each change?


Are you creating a restore point before each S/W add in case it causes issues and can be easily removed?

How to Create a System Restore Point in Windows 7

 

[NU Star]

I created a handful of restore points. Not on every install.

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Have you tried using any of them?