Corsair PC3200/A7V600/Windows XP - Major Issues

[SillyWilly]

I have never seen anything like it.

I boot up to the Windows XP Home Edition SP1 installation CD. I hit F6 to install my SATA drivers. I select the first option only.

Windows sees my harddrive, formats it, then installs fine. I load Motherboard Drivers, NIC Card, Video Card and Sound Card. I do all the dang windows updates. Everthing loads fine, no conflicts, no "?" in Device Manager. I power down. After a couple of days, I boot my system and I get the following error message:

The Registry cnnot load the (hive) file: \SystemRoot\System32\Config\SYSTEM or its log or alternate. It is corrupt, absent or not writeable.

Cause (From Microsoft website): This behavior can occur if a necessary registry hive file cannot be loaded because the file is corrupted or missing. Registry files can be damaged because of hard disk corruption or some other hardware problem. This behavior can also occur if the driver has damaged the registry data while loading into memory, or if the memory where the rregistry is loading has a parity error. In the latter, turn off the external cache and check the memory chips.

Step 1 - I did the unbelieveable and called Microsoft Tech Support and paid for it. They had me reformat, do a clean install of XP and when I loaded XP they said everything works, nothing they could do.

Step 2 - Called Western Digital. They had me run the WIN DLG program form their website. Select Extended Test and got error message stating cable error reading. I had to RMA my new harddrive, I just got a new one today, loaded it and guess what? Same error message about cable reading error. I am confused. The WD Utility can see my harddrive, provide serial number and the like. My BIOS sees my harddrive. XP must recognize it otherwise why would it format my harddrive and then proceeed to load windows? I tried both SATA cables that came with my motherboard and still can't run this utility. Can anyone else run this that has the WD Raptor Serial ATA harddrive?

Step 3 - I am clueless what to try next. I am posting this same message in the Harddrive, Sound Card, Operating System forums as well. I realize not everything here applies to the motherboard but I didn't want to keep retyping all of this! I am open for any suggestions. This has been going on for a month with no solutions from any tech support I call!

Here are my beautiful new system specs I can't get running!!!:

Asus A7V600 Motherboard (BIOS 1005)
Corsair PC 3200 (400 FSB) - 1GB
WD Raptor 10,000 RPM SATA Harddrive (36GB)
AMD Athlon Barton 2500
Gainward Golden Sample GEForce FX5600 760XP Ultra Flip Chip (128MB)
Audigy 2 Sound Card
Using onboard NIC Card
Samsung SyncMaster 955DF 19" flat screen Monitor

[Tazman2]

I just got this board myself yesterday (9/12) and i also have corsair xms3200 c2pt i believe it was. Well make a long story short at 200 mhz bus i can only run 2-3-3-6 at 2.55v and it "seems" stable. Anything higher and it falls flat on its face when just using IE. So either set it to SPD or the above settings which are alittle better then spd. And make sure u have the cpu voltage set to manual as i heard auto can do wierd things. Also i use 2.55 for the memory not auto or any of the other settings as they make me lockup.

[Tazman2]

I just notiched u have 1 gig of ram. So i assume 2 sticks. Umm slots 1/2 do not work on this board from what i've seen on this forum. So put one in slot 1 and one in slot 3 and run them at SPD and it should work then! Good luck!

[SillyWilly]

I have 2 sticks of ram (512MB each).

Corsair PC3200 TWINX 1024-3200LL XMS 3200 ultra low latency w/platinum heat spreader. Always has been in slot #1 and #3.

I ran the Windows Diagnostic Memory Test (standard and Enhanced) and no errors were reported.

Seems no matter what I try I get no errors but something is causing data corruption!

[Tazman2]

To begin with i also forgot to mention to turn off 1T command thingy plus the timings or just SPD like i told u. I found that my ram gets more unstable as voltage goes up on this mobo. Well atleast my crucial does this strange. And 2nd i ran max settings except 1T and got 0 errors in memtest yet obviously its a problem in windows. So i have started to not trust memtest now completely myself. LMK how it goes.

[SillyWilly]

I ran Memtest86 (default and all tests) with no errors.

[Tazman2]

Well as i mentioned don't trust it! I did the same and windows crashed but memtest was 100% good. After more testing i suggest you set to SPD for memory, auto voltage for memory and 1T command OFF! If you still can't run windows install at the bare minimum then ur ram is just plain bad most likely. Also try running just 1 stick not both at once if the above don't work.

[SillyWilly]

In BIOS I set to SPD and turned the 1T thing off. Let meknow if my new methodology would detect either a MB or Memory issue. Thanks for all your help.

System officially crashed on 09/14 (same thing ran for 2 days and crashed). I cannot get into safe mode, last known good configuration, etc. (safe mode and last known good configuration are a joke in XP because you can never get into Safe Mode. Oh yes I have a restore point but I need to get into safe mode to use it. Lots of good that does me.

I am reformatting tonite. Let me know if my new methodology will detect a hardware issue.

First I am taking my sound card out of the MB. When I install windows it will load VGA drivers for my video card. I wil run the system with VGA drivers to see if I crash in my usual two days. If so would this be a good bet that something is wrong with either my MB or Memory (I already had to RMA harddrive). If my system runs until Thursday, I will install my video card drivers Thursday night. Then if it continues to run fine through Sunday, I will then install my Sound Card on Monday (09/21).

If you would suggest trying a different way please let me know. Thank you and thanks to everyone for your continual help in trying to resolve what is happening with my system.

[Tazman2]

Hmm.. okay that sounds good. Run a bare just video card system with the settings that u now have set as i suggested. Also u did not mention if u left the ram voltage at auto!? I found that at anything past 2.55 it actually got more unstable which is very odd. My a7v8x did the same thing. If u want to tax the system alittle and see if its stable sooner, run 3dmark or something. As just idling will make the error take longer to appear. When my ram was running too hard settings i crashed just opening two internet explorer windows and aim at the same time running it would crash. Well IE would. From what i can gather, windows errors, app crashes, data corruption, etc. is from bad ram or too high of settings. COMPLETE BSOD crashes are USUALLY not ram though they can be i suppose if the ram is really screwed. But ok. Video card and SPD ram settings and basicly everything at default. See what happends. BTW what power supply do you have?

EDIT: notiched that u didn't mention if u tried running just one memory stick? Then if crashes, exchange it for the other one and see what happens. Though after reading ur original post it seems like maybe its the hd but u got it RMAed so hmm. Did u try swapping cables as well? My a7v600 came with 2 so.

[rpbrown]

I had the same problem the first time I booted with the exact memory you had. I went to the BIOS and opted for the default settings and booted-it went fine and then I started the tweaking and after that everything ran fine.

Might be worth a try.

[SillyWilly]

Update 09/15:

I get home from work....go and do my usual reformat. Interesting scenario appears. I can delete my partion as usual, XP then formats my harddrive...then it starts copying files. During XP Installation I hang at 81% and the following file is missing: themeui.dll.

I bit the bullet and called Microsoft. Microsoft won't charge me and indicated their is nothing they can do. It is a hardware issue. Microsoft quoted as I gave them the exact error message I provided in this thread earlier said it is one of 3 things: Motherboard, Memory or Hard Drive.

As I indicated earlier, I have already RMA'd my hard drive. So I highly doubt I would have received two bad Raptor drives.

Memory - I ran Windows Diagnostic Memory test (default and all) and MEMTest86 (default and all) and no errors were detected. Tonight I put one stick of RAM in and tried to load windows and it hung at the same point. I put the other stick of RAM in and once again went throught the reformat process, deleted the current partition, installed a fresh copy of XP, XP formatted the harddrive, began copying files then hung once again at 81% (same file missing). This would seem to me to eliminate Memory as the cause.

Motherboard. Again tried to call ASUS. All I can say is ASUS has the worst Tech Support I have ever seen! Once again at 6:00pm EST (open until 8:00pm EST) I got through and they were only taking names and phone calls to return tomorrow. I screamed at the individual for a bit and of course they apologized for the inconvienence and they noted to call me around 5:30PM EST (believe it when I see it).

Does anyone believe I shouldn't RMA the motherboard at this point? What is everone's consensus? I am leaning towards the motherboard myself.

Let me know ASAP. Thanks again

P/S - Antec 430W True Power Supply/ Antec Case

Raptor Harddrive - I tried switching cables then WD RMA's the harddrive. New Hard Drive I have switched cables and still same errors.

RAM Settings - I set my BIOS to System Defaults. The only option I turned off was onboard audio. I have nothing overclocked.

let me know what you think I should do now?

[Tazman2]

Well if you get the same problems if the memory is maxed out or at default and also what you mentioned then it doesn't seem to be the memory or the harddrive since it was RMA'ed already. So i guess maybe you got a bad motherboard. Strange. But it happens i guess. Anybody else?

[SillyWilly]

My brother put his new MSI board in my computer (SATA ready) and XP loads fine for me.

Now this is certainly a motherboard issue. The questions now is the board bad, SATA Driver issue or something else.