[360_Rog]

Hi,

After some initial driver conflicts were rectified, XP Pro had been running solidly on the machine below for the past year, until about a week or so ago. I started getting "Thread_Stuck_In_Driver", "Bad_Pool_Header", or "An error was caused by an unknown device driver" BSOD errors consistently within 5 minutes of logging in. It never happened in safe mode, or until I logged in. Anyway, I decided that while I was going to spend some time on troubleshooting my computer, I'd try a fresh install of Vista on a new hard disk (the Western Digital 500 GB). I have an MSDN subscription, so I have official January 2007 copies of the RTM DVDs (ie they are not downloaded).

Before I did the Vista install, under XP, I tried uninstalling the old Catalyst software and installing 7.1. Still had the same problem. I tried swapping out my X1800XT with a brand new X1950 Pro. Same thing. I tried swapping out the RAM. Didn't work either. Always got the same error within minutes of starting XP. More on this later.

Not wanting to touch my XP drive, I bought a brand new WD 500GB SATA2 drive to install Vista on. Not expecting any problems since we'd installed it at work without a hitch, I pulled out all non-essential hardware and popped the 32-bit (x86) Vista Ultimate in. I tried to install it several times, and every time it hung on "Expanding Files" or "Installing Features" in some random place.

A friend told me to up the voltage to my RAM a little as this can help with stability, so I did. Probably just a coincidence, but I was able to install all the way through using the x86 DVD after this. It did hang on first boot, however, but appeared to work fine after I physically cycled the power. Being a scientific techie, I wanted to see if I could repeat the install. Sure enough, it worked just fine and it didn't hang on first boot. Curious, I even unplugged the drive and plugged in my XP drive to see if my previous BSOD errors were gone. Yup. Without a trace. I even stress tested for 48 hours. 0 errors!

Thinking that I now had everything working in a consistent, repeatable manner, I went out and grabbed the drivers for the 64-bit version, popped in the Vista x64 DVD and tried to install it. After I'd already formatted the drive the Vista x86 version was on, I realized that Microsoft hadn't supplied the license key for x64 for some reason. Sigh... So I popped the x86 DVD back in, expecting to ave no problems whatsoever with the install this time since I was able to install it twice already from the same config and DVD the day before. Nope. No dice. Back to square one. It has gone back to hanging during "Expanding Files" or "Intalling Features". Remember, same DVD, same computer, SAME CONFIG. I hadn't changed a thing! Anyone have any ideas? I'm fresh out. Maybe I'll try a flat install.

The only thing that I haven't swapped out on this computer over the past year has been the processor. I was reading that the Athlon 64 X2 processors can sometimes have timing problems that can cause otherwise random system hangs. Is there any way to test for this?

Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to provide as much detail as possible.

Thanks,
Roger

[clicker666]

The x64 key is the same as the x32 on the MSDN. As for the rest, I can't really help.

[360_Rog]

Thanks clicker666, but that didn't work for me for some reason.

[360_Rog]

Eventually, I got it to install... I put the DVD in, turned off the monitor and went to bed.