Ok so need some help here. My rig thats about 3 and half years old or so out of warranty has had a... hiccup? (Vista business 64bit)

Yesterday turned pc on and next thing i know its restarting weird... turns out i missed the BSOD, had a few more after restarting and then HDD (3, OS raptor, 400gb seagate and 200 maxtor) weren't detected.

Managed to get them seen at last and then only had the OS drive connected, and removed my ready boost memory stick. Managed once to get into it in safe mode and got the data off it. Since all safe mode and last known good BSOD.

Tried to reinstall vista, BSOD, cursor loads on black screen, or trys to install and then some error occurs.
Have also tried live boot ubunto 7.10 x32 and x64 both of theses crash/freeze
USB Linux Pen drive, loads files and then stops on a black screen.

Forgot to mention, have tried different HDD's to install onto as well as different Vista disc's

I Have managed to get XP Pro 32bit to install with errors at install. Loaded to desktop and stayed on that for a few hours fine. wasnt doing anything on it.

Have done RAM check with memtest86 v2.0 for 15min with no errors.

I am out of ideas, please can someone help with any indication as to what this problem could be?

Rig:
HDD Raptor 36gb, OS
HDD Seagate 400gb, Programs/Storage
HDD Maxtor 200gb, Storage
Asus A8v Deluxe
AMD 64 X2 4200 (2.2Ghz)
2gb Crucial Ballistix RAM
6800GT 256mb
Audigy 2 ZS
Vista 64bit Business Edition


Hope someone can help or it may be a new rig...
Thanks!

If you still havn't whiped the disk that had Vista on it, try putting it in another PC and checking out the details on the BSOD. I believe it stores it in a file on the root of the disk (though I'm not sure as to how it is called).

Other than that, when Ubuntu crashes, does it give you an error message on any of the consoles? (If you can even get that out somehow)

And: Which errors are you getting on the install?

Could be that your IO Manager broke somehow..

The motherboard looks to be that age, that you should check all the capacitors in it. If any of them is "fatter", you know expanded or even leaked some fluid, then that is your problem. It was a usual problem with mobos (EDIT: made, made about 5 years ago) about 5 years ago, mobo makers got a delivery of faulty capacitors... And they would make all kind of crazy symptoms (raise some voltage substantially etc.etc.)

I agree, it sounds like your Motherboard I/O or controller has gone bad. Had something similar recently and it wiped all my precious photos out

Ditto.
I was going to suggest the Motherboard too.
What Mobo is in it?. The better companies like Gigabyte may still have stock of the exact board that you might get ultra cheap.




AusROM

Thanks for the ideas i'll take a look.

SG: I got a segfault on ubunto on one of the attempts.

I did a check disc via my laptop on the OS raptor drive, and also removed 2 of my RAM sticks, Vista installed, have been using it for 4 or 5 hours
I have since put the 2 sticks back in and the ready boost and then started few reloads and all ok managed to get a load of data backed up of another drive.
Bit more updates and now it BSODs again.
Also had a new blue screen with, unknown Hard error ntdll.dll come up that i have not seen or heard of before.

i'll be checking the mobo next now see if i can see any problems about that, also to give the rig a good cleaning its a tad dusty

Triax wrote:

i'll be checking the mobo next now see if i can see any problems about that, also to give the rig a good cleaning its a tad dusty

As memory is already tested, there are only a couple things to check. Does all cooling work, test it with another PSU that is surely working, check the capacitors on mobo (as I said earlier). If it isn't any of those, then most likely it's still the mobo...

Check the mobo and all seems fine. All the fans are working and cooling is fine also.

Im going to try different ram to compeletly remove that possibility.

the annoying thing now is im actually using it to type this post, but the first boot BSOD with CLFS.sys.

The problem seems to have decreased some how... but is still there and can sometimes get constant again on every boot.

Any luck yet sire?

I have had to put this on a slow process as i have 2 assignments in this Monday and Tues, and more every week till 21st. Im not sure how much time i'll have to keep working on this already lost 3 and a half days trying to.

I have yet to try different RAM and can also try a different GFX card and PSU.

The weird thing is im on it now working fine. But it took about 4 restarts to get it working after i shut it down last night and turn the power switch off at the wall.

Im thinking it must be some sort of thermal heating on some link that is the issue, untill it properly warms up and expands it causes problems. PSU is the obvious option for this kinda problem i think.

Let ya all know how it goes when i get some time. Now off to study for CCNA semester 2 exam YAY