First build nightmare

A friend of mine and I talked my cousin into building his own computer since it was really quite easy and we could walk him through any questions or issues.

He decided to go with quite the beast -

Mobo: XFX MB-N780-ISH LGA 775 Nvidia nForce 781i SLI Intel motherboard
CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4 GHz LGA 775
VGA: EVGA 512-P3-N801-AR GeForce 8800GT 512 MB 256 bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0x16HDCP (SLI ready)
RAM: OCZ SLI ready edition 4GB (2x2GB) 240 pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel
HDD: 2 x Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD7500AAKS 750 GB 7200 RPM SATA
ODD Lite-On 20x DVD+R DVD Burner with Lightscribe SATA
PSU: PC Power & Cooling S75QB EPS12V 750 W
Case: Antec 900 Mid Tower
PS/2 Keyboard for installation and testing
USB mouse converted to PS/2 for installation and testing

His parts came in, he put them together, and went to install Windows XP SP2 OEM last weekend. When the installation got to about 60% on "Copying Files," he received errors that certain files could not be copied (p3.sys being the first). He tried a couple of times, and did get the install to go through once, but he was having some issues with his display and mouse, panicked, and tried to install again. From then on, all installations failed. Some attempts were with quick format, some with full format.

After some research, our first suspects were either the media or the RAM. We told him to download the UBCD on his laptop, burn a copy, and boot it in the new build so he could run some memory tests. He ran Windows Memory Diagnostic in the extended tests on both sticks simultaneously. No errors were reported.

In the meantime, I had him create an ISO of his XP CD and transfer it to me. I burned the image and installed it on a test machine (1 ghz Celeron, 256 MR PC100 RAM, 13.6 GB IDE HDD, IDE optical) It installed start to finish with no issues.

He ran memtest from the UBCD on his RAM, both simultaneously and individually for at least 8 hours. No errors were reported in either case.

My next thought was to test the HDD's, so I had him again boot to the UBCD and run SeaTools 1.09. However, SeaTools from the UBCD would not let him get past the EULA screen. He tried a straight burn of SeaTools 1.10, still no go. He installed a 3.5" floppy drive that I had sent him and tried to run SeaTools 1.10 from there, but the same lock up occurred.

He is not able to test his optical drive, as he does not have another to swap out at the moment.

Just as a test to see if he could at least boot to an OS, my next thought was to try to boot to an Ubuntu 7.10 live CD. I had him download both the 32 bit and 64 bit versions. (I was watching on a web cam, by the way) We tried the 32 bit, and as it nearing the point that the GUI would appear, there was a note about how low graphics would need to be used. I had forgotten that the 8800 GT was too new of a card to have drivers on the live CD. After we closed this dialog box, we got a blinking cursor and nothing else. It seemed to be hung up. Now, granted, perphaps we did not wait long enough (30 - 60 seconds, but I would not think it would take this long on a machine like this. So I wrote that off as an issue with display adapter compatibility. I do not know enough about Linux to troubleshoot this one.

On a complete hunch, I watched as he tried to install Windows again. This time we only had one HDD installed. I had him create a 10 GB partition, quick format, and install into it. This time XP installed. We tried again, deleting the partition and installing into the entire drive. This time it would NOT install.

Now we were convinced that the issue was either due to the size of the HDD, or a faulty HDD. We pulled this HDD and installed the other one by itself, this time using the entire drive as the partition size. Windows DID install on this drive in this partition.

Not completely convinced, I asked him to try it again, with the same parameters. This time the errors reappeared.

We are utterly befuddled. He is going to make a trip to visit (3 hours away) this weekend so he and and I and our friend can try to troubleshoot. Between myself and our friend, we have components that we can switch out for testing.

Where should we start? I figure trying a different optical drive or HDD would be a good place to start (perhaps even PATA rather than SATA) Could it be the mobo?

What is a good boot utility to test the HDD besides SeaTools?

Is this worth the time or should he just return everything to NewEgg and start over?

PK

 

Usually when XP errors out during setup it's due to faulty memory. Plus, XP will only recognize just over 3gb of RAM, making 4gb a waste of 1gb. It's due to the 32bit nature of the hardware and software. At no point in your post above do you mention pulling one RAM stick, or trying one then the other, or moving it to different slots. I'm pretty sure it's a RAM issue. If you/he has access to a known good RAM stick, use it and see what happens. I have run diagnostics on RAM and had the memory pass the tests, but still be faulty.

 

first things first if it installed on one drive but not the other then I would suspect a defective hard drive. when you partitioned the one drive to 10 gig it may have not used the bad sectors or something of the like. Run windows up with the working drive and make sure its stable then shut down and install other hdd and see if it causes boot issues. if it does I would rma the drive.

 

dlb:

Yeah, I did:

"After some research, our first suspects were either the media or the RAM. We told him to download the UBCD on his laptop, burn a copy, and boot it in the new build so he could run some memory tests. He ran Windows Memory Diagnostic in the extended tests on both sticks simultaneously. No errors were reported."

and

"He ran memtest from the UBCD on his RAM, both simultaneously and individually for at least 8 hours. No errors were reported in either case."

The RAM has been tested THOROUGHLY. He has even switched out with other RAM (that i did not mention).

As far as the 4 GB RAM goes, his plan was to dual boot 32 and 64 bit, so the extra 1 GB would not be wasted. It was more practical to install 2 x 2 GB sticks.

ibbonkers: It installed on one drive ONCE. When we tried on that drive again, it failed.

 

Well, 6 hours, 18 Windows installs, 2 XP Pro CD's, 2 optical drives, 2 systems, 3 hard drives, and 3 geeks later, we think we figured it out.

The theory is that his XP Pro CD had a flaw that his optical drive was especially sensitive to, but not on EVERY install (though usually every other install).

Every failure started at the p3.sys file.

The true "tell tale" was when we installed his ODD into my friends computer and used the suspected media and got a failed install. The same drive worked fine though multiple installs with a different CD and the CD worked fine through multiple installs with a different ODD. There was apparently just something about that CD that his Lite-On did not like.

I am guessing that the ISO that he created on his laptop and sent to me must have been a good read (different ODD). We tried that disk too with no problems.

So, I think he is going to contact MS to get a replacement CD and use the ISO he made in the meantime. I know its a bit silly to go through the trouble when he has a working copy, but its the principle of the thing.

He may also RMA his ODD just in case the sensitivity is a defect of some sort.

That was fun.

PK

 

doh, don't you just hate it when it's the simplest of things? although, i haven't replied i've been watching from afar (so to speak), so cheers (alot of effort to find out it's a bad cd)!! :clap - sos