Windows 7 Trouble installing Windows 7 on new computer

[TheNextSwarm]

Problem description: I've just built myself a new computer. It was my first time ever building a computer from scratch, although I have played around with the innards of my old one and replaced most things aside from the motherboard and cpu so I had a pretty good idea of what I was doing. I got everything put together with no issues, but when I hooked up the computer to a monitor and powered it on to install the OS I started to have problems. After setting the BIOS stuff to the recommended optimal settings as the motherboard guide instructed, I think opened up the DVD drive and put in my copy of Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit. After resetting the computer I got a black screen with a white bar and a message saying "opening windows files." The bar filled up twice and then my computer restarted. The same thing showed up, but this time it made it past that screen without error. The windows logo emerged out of four dots, and then the system froze. It now freezes on that screen every time I restart the computer, although one time it did show a blue screen after the windows logo before freezing. Sometimes it reboots instead of freezing.

Attempted fixes: Switching the boot order, making sure I'm booting from the DVD drive, changing which SATA port the hard drive and DVD drive were plugged into, removing all USB devices, and that's basically it. I really have no clue what's going wrong, if I screwed up building the computer or what.

Operating system: Trying to install Windows 7 home Premium 64 bit, using an OEM for system builders version bought online.

System specs: MSI P55M-GD41, i5 750 2.66gHz, Powercolor HD5770, 4GB DDR3, Corsair 450w, Seagate Barracuda 1TB 7200rpm, LG x16 OEM DVD drive

 

[TorrentG]

Link Removed

"Hi.

Many users have found success by installing with as little amount of RAM necessary. So remove all the RAM from the machine, except one stick. (You can place it all back after Windows installs.)

Also, remove the video card from the system. Connect a monitor to the motherboard. (Again, you can place the video card back after Windows is installed.)

Give this a try and let us know how it goes.

The 450W PSU may be too little for your system with the current graphics card. I don't know the necessary wattage needed for the video card, but if I were you, I'd look into it.
You'll probably have success installing Windows for now, as I've shown above.

Good luck."

"Just found this and it says 450W is minimum with that card.

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If the rest of your system has a higher than normal requirement, this may be a problem."

 

[patcooke]

Are you using a graphics card or do you have an onboard grahics chip?

 

[TheNextSwarm]

Haha, funny to see you reply to my two threads on separate forums TorrentG. As I said there, I've just tried removing each stick of RAM and each time I had the same results. To reply to patcooke, I am using a Powercolor HD5770 and my motherboard does not have an onboard GPU so I am unable to disconnect it.

 

[TheNextSwarm]

Welp, looks like I may have been mislead about the 450w being enough for my system. Luckily that was a part I bought from a local store and not online so I'll be able to return that later today and update you guys if that's the fix. Learned my lesson to not just take someone else's word as good and to in the future do the research myself.

 

[CommonTater]

One small error, which may or may not be causing your problem...

When first getting a new machine going "from scratch" you should always use the manufacturer's BIOS Defaults. Basically this puts everything on auto-detect and the safest CPU and Memory timings. BIOS tweaks and updates should never be done until one is certain the system is otherwise stable.

Also... you need to change your boot order so that it goes to the HDD first, not the Optical drive. To install from the DVD you would use the pop-up boot menu (usually on F8 or F12). The reason for this is that on first boot the system needs to read and copy files from the DVD... but on that first reboot in the installer, and every time after, it needs to get to the hard disk.

 

[TheNextSwarm]

I have tried using the manufactures default BIOS settings to no avail. I have also tried putting the DVD drive first in boot order and still had the same problems. As a note I've just realized now that I'm two days past the return date on the power supply, so I'm going to wait another day or two to see what other possible problems there might be before I bite the extra money it's going to cost to upgrade.

 

[patcooke]

I've just realized now that I'm two days past the return date on the power supply,

May retailers are not that tight about a few days - worth trying them, especially if you're doing more business with them as well

 

[TheNextSwarm]

Good news: I called the store and was able to return the power supply. Did so and got the Antec Earthwatts 650.

Bad news: It didn't solve the problem. The computer still freezes every time it hits the black Windows logo/"Starting Windows" screen.

This is extremely frustrating. Anyone else have any ideas on what may be causing this?

 

[kemical]

Hi Swarm,
is the system bios actually up to date?

 

[TheNextSwarm]

I believe it is. How would I go about checking?

The motherboard did come with a disk marked Drivers & Utilities, but the instructions said to first install the OS before putting that disk in.

 

[Veegertx]

Reboot and go into Bios and see what version it is and then You go to mobo website and track down their bios update options
BIOS Type AMI BIOS File Size 1103KB Version 1.7 Update Date 2010-06-30
http://www.msi.com/index.php?func=downloaddetail&type=bios&maincat_no=1&prod_no=1959

 

[TheNextSwarm]

Spent the last hour learning how to update my BIOS, reading about the risks, trying and failing to flash it a few times as I did the wrong thing, and then finally getting it right. While my BIOS is now sitting pretty at it's most current version, when I tried installing Windows it still got stuck on that same damn screen.

 

[kemical]

Reading through the thread it seems the only thing you haven't changed in any way is the HDD.
It might also be worth trying the disk in a friends machine just to make sure it's ok..

 

[TheNextSwarm]

I'm just about to hit the sack now, but when I get up I'll try plugging the hard drive into my current rig and see if it works. I don't think it's the hard drive however - I can't see any reason for it to cause failures when so far I doubt it's even been used. I've never been able to get to a stage of installation where anything has actually been, well, installed.

 

[TorrentG]

I really think you should install from a USB flash device if at all possible.

It could be a hard drive issue instead, but like you, I don't think it's likely. But definitely possible.

(Also make sure your copy of Windows is "legit". I believe your original post, no doubt...I'm just saying in case our rules here have been somewhat of a consideration in that post etc...)

 

[Veegertx]

Operating system: Trying to install Windows 7 home Premium 64 bit, using an OEM for system builders version bought online.

I knew it couldn't be bios for fairly new board. If you downloaded this go back and burn Dvd real slow like 4x. Might also try a cheapy vid card in new system cause this is fairly new ati card you have there may be a driver issue. You can then put new card in after setup. Your chipset drivers were updated also 2010-07-30 MSI Global ? Computer, Laptop, Notebook, Desktop, Mainboard, Graphics and more
Older win 7 disk versions may not have updated driver's but more of a generic.

I inject all updates/ driver's into my dvd source since my file date is July ‎14, ‎2009, ‏‎4:29:38 AM

 

[TheNextSwarm]

I'm pretty sure my copy's legit, it can in a bunch of packaging with some vague legal threats if I dared to use it on a machine I didn't build and the case has a product key sticker. I bought it online, but it was a physical disk shipped to me not a digital version. I may be able to install from a USB drive, and I'll try that later on.

I don't have any other PCI-e cards to test in the machine. My current computer is ancient enough that it uses an AGP card (and DDR RAM), so I never had any use for one before.

 

[TheNextSwarm]

Someone on another forum solved the problem. Moral of the story: always check to make sure your RAM doesn't require different than normal voltage! Changing my BIOS to have my RAM at 1.65v fixed it. Thanks to everyone who responded for you help.

 

[patcooke]

Thanks for the feedback. It's all good experience ain't it - and so satisfying when it's finally sorted and it all falls in to place eh?