Windows 7 Catastrophic failure

[KishiShingo]

Hi.

First things first - here's my system breakdown:
MoBo: ASUS P5QL Pro
CPU: Intel Core Duo E8400 3.0GHz
HD: Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 500Gb
Memory: OCZ Reaper PC2-8500 4Gb
Video: Sapphire Radeon HD 4650 600 MHz 1Gb

I had been running the 32-bit version of Windows 7 since April 2009 without problem until recently. About a month ago, my system began experiencing what I referred to as "seizures" - it would spasm, slow down to a crawl and possibly freeze, but a reset would bring it back up to speed. Two weeks ago, it suddenly reset itself (no BSoD) and would not come back up again. Eventually, I resorted to sticking in a Ubuntu disk which gave me limited access to the HD.

Upon finding a bad cluster in the main partition for the HD, I deleted and reestablished it and then did a clean install with the same Windows 7 disc. That lasted about a day. I then found out that the Seagate HDs were notoriously unreliable, and that was most likey the problem, so I replaced it with a Western Digital 500Gb and tried a 64-bit version of W7 that a friend recommended.

Well, I had a lot of problems with it right from the get-go (a lot of software conflicts, crashes, and whatnot) so I decided to go back to the 32-bit version. Before reinstalling, I stuck the Ubuntu disk back in and ran their memory test program and everything came up fine. Back to 32-bit, everything seemed fine. Then yesterday I tried installing OpenGL and it crashed again and won't come back.

Oh. I should also mention that I tried a couple of restore points with errors in the 64-bit and 32-bit versions, but they only fixed whatever problems I was having for a couple of hours, tops.

So. I'm at my wit's end - can anyone offer any suggestions or advice? I have a sneaking suspicion that my MoBo might be broke.

Apologies for the length - I just wanted to get all the info in. Thanks!

 

[busydog]

Hi.

First things first - here's my system breakdown:
MoBo: ASUS P5QL Pro
CPU: Intel Core Duo E8400 3.0GHz
HD: Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 500Gb
Memory: OCZ Reaper PC2-8500 4Gb
Video: Sapphire Radeon HD 4650 600 MHz 1Gb

I had been running the 32-bit version of Windows 7 since April 2009 without problem until recently. About a month ago, my system began experiencing what I referred to as "seizures" - it would spasm, slow down to a crawl and possibly freeze, but a reset would bring it back up to speed. Two weeks ago, it suddenly reset itself (no BSoD) and would not come back up again. Eventually, I resorted to sticking in a Ubuntu disk which gave me limited access to the HD.

Upon finding a bad cluster in the main partition for the HD, I deleted and reestablished it and then did a clean install with the same Windows 7 disc. That lasted about a day. I then found out that the Seagate HDs were notoriously unreliable, and that was most likey the problem, so I replaced it with a Western Digital 500Gb and tried a 64-bit version of W7 that a friend recommended.

Well, I had a lot of problems with it right from the get-go (a lot of software conflicts, crashes, and whatnot) so I decided to go back to the 32-bit version. Before reinstalling, I stuck the Ubuntu disk back in and ran their memory test program and everything came up fine. Back to 32-bit, everything seemed fine. Then yesterday I tried installing OpenGL and it crashed again and won't come back.

Oh. I should also mention that I tried a couple of restore points with errors in the 64-bit and 32-bit versions, but they only fixed whatever problems I was having for a couple of hours, tops.

So. I'm at my wit's end - can anyone offer any suggestions or advice? I have a sneaking suspicion that my MoBo might be broke.

Apologies for the length - I just wanted to get all the info in. Thanks!

I'd start off by running a comprehensive memory scan. What you are seeing (crashes) could be due to bad memory.

 

[KishiShingo]

Well, I ran the Memory Diagnostic supplied with Windows 7 and it came back fine - the Performance Information tool rates my memory a 7.0 out of a maximum of 7.9, in fact. Is there another more comprehensive scanner available? Or is there anything else you could suggest?

Thanks again!

EDIT: Oh, the memory scan did get me back into Windows - my first post was from the Ubuntu CD, so thanks for that!

 

[Tepid]

Please keep in mind that a single pass from any memory scanner is not enough to determine good or bad memory, unless it comes back bad.

You need to run the scan for no less than 4 to 6 hours to get a comprehensive determination of good/bad memory.

 

[Datagg]

Im gonna say bad HD or PSU issues....... Im leaning more towards a croaking HD though to be honest,

 

[KishiShingo]

Yep. Looks like bad memory. I've contacted OCZ to get an RMA started. Thanks for the help!