New build, getting BSOD's during Windows installation

dr.stevil

dr.stevil

[H]F Junkie
Joined
Sep 26, 2008
Messages
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I jumped on a Tiger Direct package deal a few weeks back to build my (now ex) girlfriends son a gaming PC of his own for xmas.

Specs are as follows

AMD A10-6800K
MSI A68HM-E33 V2 mobo
HyperX Fury 8gb DDR3
1TB Seagate HDD
SolidGear 750W ATX PSU

I finally got around to building it earlier this week. First I tested everything outside the case and it worked just fine. Once I verified that, I went ahead and put everything inside the case and, again, it works just fine. I can get into the UEFI and it will sit there for hours without any problems.

The issue comes up when I try to install windows. The very first time I tried to install it, it gave me some sort of error and I had to reboot it. I tried again to install windows but this time I got into the installer and everything seemed to go fine. I walked away from the machine for 20 mins or so and when I came back, it was sitting at a BSOD.

"F%&*" I thought, so I again rebooted and tried to install Windows 7 with the same outcome. It started to work just fine and then it bluescreened on me. At that point, I was frustrated and tired and figured I'd come back to it later.

So anyway, I'm going to give it another go around tonight. I was trying to install windows from a flash drive so I'm hoping that was the issue. I'll try with one of my retail discs and hopefully it goes just fine. If not, I was planning on testing the memory with memtest. I was also going to try running a Linux live CD to see if I get any kind of critical errors or anything. It would seem to me, that if it was a hardware issue, it would show up in any OS I throw on it.

Besides that, does anyone have any suggestions on what to look for? I'm really running out of time on this build... especially if I need to replace some components. I haven't done an AMD build since my Athlon64, so not entirely up to date on some issues that might crop up on their boards and such. I'm guessing that the next culprit, if the memory is ok, would likely be the PSU? I can't say I've ever heard of the company... but the unit looks decent enough.
 
Clear the CMOS (pull the battery for a few minutes), turn off any overclocking, and run Memtest on it as you said.
What is the BSOD error number?
 
Spartacus said:
Clear the CMOS (pull the battery for a few minutes), turn off any overclocking, and run Memtest on it as you said.
What is the BSOD error number?
Click to expand...

I didn't record the error, although I should have. If I run into the same issues again tonight, I'll make sure to jot the error down and post it here. Thanks for the reply
 
If I'm not wrong.....you can't run memtest without having an operating system.

If you blue screen during an installation of Windows, it's either a bad CPU, bad memory or hard drive.

Did you remove one stick of RAM and try to load the OS.....if you have two 4 GB sticks?

Does the BIOS version of the board support the CPU? (I would assume it does)

I doubt you have a bad PSU as this load would be under 100W.
 
Hey Magoo, thanks for the post. I have a live CD with memtest and a bunch of other utilities on it. Unfortunately it's only a single stick of RAM, but I could always pull a stick from another machine to verify.

I'm 100% positive the CPU is supported. Like I said, it works just fine in the UEFI menu and all gives the proper readings (cache, clock speed, name, etc). So with that said, I guess it's safe to assume that it's either a bad RAM stick or HDD... or, hopefully, just bad install media (keeping my fingers crossed). Based on the first error I got, the first time I tried to install windows, which wasn't a BSOD, that may be a possibility.
 
magoo said:
If I'm not wrong.....you can't run memtest without having an operating system.

If you blue screen during an installation of Windows, it's either a bad CPU, bad memory or hard drive.

Did you remove one stick of RAM and try to load the OS.....if you have two 4 GB sticks?

Does the BIOS version of the board support the CPU? (I would assume it does)

I doubt you have a bad PSU as this load would be under 100W.
Click to expand...

Not true on Memtest86...... the website has images for bootable CDs and USB drives.

http://www.memtest86.com/download.htm

It's very very rare to have a bad CPU. Much more common are mobo and RAM problems.
He may also have an issue with corrupted install files on his USB drive.
 
Spartacus said:
Not true on Memtest86...... the website has images for bootable CDs and USB drives.

http://www.memtest86.com/download.htm

It's very very rare to have a bad CPU. Much more common are mobo and RAM problems.
He may also have an issue with corrupted install files on his USB drive.
Click to expand...

After thinking about it a little more, would corrupted install files actually cause a BSOD though? I would assume it would of just given an error of some sort and aborted the install. I'm certainly hoping thats the issue. When I was creating the install USB stick, it took a few tries to get it to work. Pretty sure NOD32 was trying to scan it while RUFUS was creating it.
 
You can have a file that can be copied but still be corrupt when the system tries to execute the code (like with a bad .dll file). You'd likely get a BSOD in that case.
I'm still old school and use CD/DVD's to install most of the time, never tried RUFUS.

It may help if your install source has SP1.
 
yeah, good point. thanks for the help. I'll post back later with the results.
 
I've had a BIOS update fix Windows install issues in the past, especially if you're using a newer CPU. Just a thought...

Good luck!
 
Spleen said:
I've had a BIOS update fix Windows install issues in the past, especially if you're using a newer CPU. Just a thought...

Good luck!
Click to expand...

Thanks. I will look into that as well. I assumed that everything would play nice, since it was all bundled together as a package deal, but I also wouldn't discount it either.
 
dr.stevil said:
I jumped on a Tiger Direct package deal a few weeks back to build my (now ex) girlfriends son a gaming PC of his own for xmas.

Specs are as follows

AMD A10-6800K
MSI A68HM-E33 V2 mobo
HyperX Fury 8gb DDR3
1TB Seagate HDD
SolidGear 750W ATX PSU

I finally got around to building it earlier this week. First I tested everything outside the case and it worked just fine. Once I verified that, I went ahead and put everything inside the case and, again, it works just fine. I can get into the UEFI and it will sit there for hours without any problems.

The issue comes up when I try to install windows. The very first time I tried to install it, it gave me some sort of error and I had to reboot it. I tried again to install windows but this time I got into the installer and everything seemed to go fine. I walked away from the machine for 20 mins or so and when I came back, it was sitting at a BSOD.

"F%&*" I thought, so I again rebooted and tried to install Windows 7 with the same outcome. It started to work just fine and then it bluescreened on me. At that point, I was frustrated and tired and figured I'd come back to it later.

So anyway, I'm going to give it another go around tonight. I was trying to install windows from a flash drive so I'm hoping that was the issue. I'll try with one of my retail discs and hopefully it goes just fine. If not, I was planning on testing the memory with memtest. I was also going to try running a Linux live CD to see if I get any kind of critical errors or anything. It would seem to me, that if it was a hardware issue, it would show up in any OS I throw on it.

Besides that, does anyone have any suggestions on what to look for? I'm really running out of time on this build... especially if I need to replace some components. I haven't done an AMD build since my Athlon64, so not entirely up to date on some issues that might crop up on their boards and such. I'm guessing that the next culprit, if the memory is ok, would likely be the PSU? I can't say I've ever heard of the company... but the unit looks decent enough.
Click to expand...

What kind of media are you installing from?

I've had flaky install media or optical drives give me fits on several occasions. I'd pull my hair out for hours troubleshooting the system's components, only to have the problem totally go away when installing from a different copy of the install media, or using a different CD drive.

I've also had BIOS updates fix things like this, as someone else suggested, but less commonly than the media thing.

Bad RAM is another possibility - you should be able to just make a live stick or CD and boot from it. Usually, 20 minutes of memtest is enough to rule out memory, in my experience if the issue is bad enough that you can't even get Windows installed.

A remote possibility is a bad power supply, but I have doubts that that's your problem here.
 
>>What kind of media are you installing from?

He said it was a bootable flash drive and it was giving him fits to begin with.
Lacking any further info, my bet is also that being the problem.

Also agree that he could have bad RAM.

Edit: Razor.... what's with the tag line next to your forum name? lol
 
Spartacus said:
>>What kind of media are you installing from?

He said it was a bootable flash drive and it was giving him fits to begin with.
Lacking any further info, my bet is also that being the problem.

Also agree that he could have bad RAM.

Edit: Razor.... what's with the tag line next to your forum name? lol
Click to expand...

I once made the mistake of telling Kyle or Steve, back in the earlier days of [H] that I thought it was amusing that they'd title raped someone else with "Headwear by Foreskin," and was given my very own super flattering title for my trouble.

I actually kind of like it now. No one has one like it. :D Things were a little less politically correct back then. When new users would first register, their title would be "stank cheese" for a while. I miss those days.

On topic, I have a couple of thumb drives that just do not work as Windows install drives. They work great for just about anything else, but the windows install media maker thingy never manages to get the image on there right for some reason.
 
lol thanks guys.

So I just tried installing from a retail DVD and got the BSOD again. I'll attach it in case anyone wants a look at it.

I'm in the process of running memtestx86+. I's at 50% and so far so good. I'm beginning to think that it might need a bios/EFI update. I'll be looking into that next. I appreciate everyone taking the time to help me out. Cheers

http://imgur.com/hIaRSzM
 
Do you have another optical drive? I've had the same problem happen where the DVD I was using was good, but the drive was the issue.

Bios update is a possibility, especially if you're using a relatively old motherboard and a new CPU. Unlike Intel, AMD likes to keep sockets around for multiple generations of CPUs, and I could see that being required to support relatively new ones.
 
I dont have another drive unfortunately, but considering I got the same BSOD with both the DVD and a flash drive, I can only assume that the media isn't the problem. Memtest just finished pass 1 with absolutely no errors, so I'm going to see if I can find a bios update.
 
I think 0x0000001e is associated sometimes with not enough disk space. In this case it would be a bad drive failing during the install process.
 
thanks Skillz. I updated the Bios and windows is installing as I type this. Hopefully I don't jinx myself but it seems to have gotten further than it has in the past. Knock on wood. I'll report back either way

if it's just the drive, I'd be ok with that.
 
Skillz said:
I think 0x0000001e is associated sometimes with not enough disk space. In this case it would be a bad drive failing during the install process.
Click to expand...

Was just going to post this.... check target drive for disk space.

Just connect it to another system and wipe it for fun to see if that helps.
*** Don't wipe the wrong drive *** lol

Also, try a different video card if you can.

Are you using the onboard mobo video?

For sure check on the BIOS update too. You may want to use a new/fresh flash drive to
update the BIOS if you had any trouble with that other one.

dr.stevil said:
thanks Skillz. I updated the Bios and windows is installing as I type this. Hopefully I don't jinx myself but it seems to have gotten further than it has in the past. Knock on wood. I'll report back either way

if it's just the drive, I'd be ok with that.
Click to expand...

Was typing when you posted..... good to hear it's running now!
Good job!
 
Make sure you are installing from a USB 2.0 port not a 3.0 port. For some very odd reason, windows will not install from a USB in a 3.0 port
 
So it's completely up and running. Turns out the bios was the issue, go figure. Thanks again for the help.
 
Good to hear you got it running! Nice that none of the parts were actually bad.
It's been a long time since I had a BIOS problem cause an OS install failure.

Shame on Tiger for selling these parts in a bundle without at least some kind of note packed
in with the order that you may need to flash the BIOS and how to do it. They will get returns
on this from people who will not take the time to figure it out.
 
Spartacus said:
Good to hear you got it running! Nice that none of the parts were actually bad.
It's been a long time since I had a BIOS problem cause an OS install failure.

Shame on Tiger for selling these parts in a bundle without at least some kind of note packed
in with the order that you may need to flash the BIOS and how to do it. They will get returns
on this from people who will not take the time to figure it out.
Click to expand...

That was my thought as well. Its slightly annoying that Tiger put this together as a build kit of sorts, and the parts weren't even completely compatible OOTB. That's lazy on their part.
 
This is a really neat thread.
I would not have expected the BIOS to interfere with the OS install, and generally just a good point to remember in troubleshooting.

Glad it worked out.
 
dr.stevil said:
That was my thought as well. Its slightly annoying that Tiger put this together as a build kit of sorts, and the parts weren't even completely compatible OOTB. That's lazy on their part.
Click to expand...

It's possible that it originally was, but a board revision changed things, or something.
 
diizzy said:
The first you do with components is to update firmware and BIOS.
//Danne
Click to expand...

I have been putting together systems now for over a decade.
I can count on one hand the number of times I flashed a BIOS before I loaded an OS.

About the only times I can recall were when the Board had been shipped with a BIOS that was not compatible with the CPU I wanted to use. That goes back to S 775 days.

Many times if you flash the BIOS and you don't know what you're doing, you end up with a very expensive paperweight.
 
You can never assume that a package deal from a retailer has intercompatability. They often feature mismatches,simply because they are the products they wish to unload.Before buying always go to the motherboard manufacturers site to find memory and CPU compatability.Sometimes even power supplies are incompatable or have trouble with only that motherboard.I have learned most things the hard way,being a read instructions when other things fail,kind of person.
 
magoo said:
I have been putting together systems now for over a decade.
I can count on one hand the number of times I flashed a BIOS before I loaded an OS.

About the only times I can recall were when the Board had been shipped with a BIOS that was not compatible with the CPU I wanted to use. That goes back to S 775 days.

Many times if you flash the BIOS and you don't know what you're doing, you end up with a very expensive paperweight.
Click to expand...

word. actually, i dont ever remember updating a BIOS to install OS besides a CPU upgrade that I was aware of. i did however have windows 7 not liking a specific type of optical drive (samsung something) that i ended buying an external one and booting from there.
 
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