GA-990XA-UD3 Issue with Windows 7

[Sobutosu]

Hey all, I've been having an issue trying to get windows 7 pro x64 to work with the board, not sure if anyone here can help me.

Been having slight issues with BSOD's for a while, eventually I formatted the disk and now I can't even get Windows installed on there. When booting into the installation screen I receive the standard loading image followed immediately by an IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL BSOD.

I've literally swapped everything short of the mobo and cpu,
Memtest turned up no faults,
A few bios changes I tried didnt help (9-9-9-24 timings & manual 1600mHz),
*Updated bios to f13 (most recent stable version)
and I cannot debug due to the fact I can't access windows at all anymore.

I added linux and it works fine, something about windows 7 isn't sitting right. I believe the IRQL stop code signifies a driver error, though I'm not sure what I can do about that given the only external devices are the HDD and Video Card (both of which show the same problem despite trying 3 different devices).

If it helps, the standard configuration of the board is:
GA-990XA-UD3
AMD 965 Black
2 x 4GB GSKILL Sniper 1600mHz
GTX 560
Corsair 750x
Western Digital Blue 500gb


Any help is appreciated, been staring at this issue for a while now with no luck. I think I've got a Vista disk laying around, tempted to try that tonight and see if I have any luck.

[Vezina]

My guess is that the RAM should be tested with Memtest properly.It may have issues.
Linux is smarter with bad ram

And use 1333 Mhz for RAM with that CPU for stability.

[Sobutosu]

Ran memtest to death so I'm not sure. However, I'll try lowering the memory speeds and see if it helps.

Thanks!

[Vezina]

It may be that the RAM sticks to not be identical thus giving random errors when in dual channel ,even  if each one is ok by itself .
Or maybe the memory controller doesn t like them at 1600Mhz.
Make sure Command Rate is at 2T also.

If you still see this try with a different RAM kit ,it s 99% RAM related.

[Sobutosu]

With one stick @ 1333 Mhz I am now able to install my OS. See how where goes from here, but it's a big improvement. I'll toss a different set of ram in there and see how it reacts. That seems to be the issue though.

I'm curious if it's just the RAM or also stability issue at 1600 Mhz. Anyway thanks again for the help. If only I didn't need Windows!

[Vezina]

Test the RAM kit in some other system as well.
It may be that the kit to be intended for Intel CPU-s subtiming wise ,as well as it can simply be defective.