[Xanoth]

My PC is :

Mobo : ASUS M2N-SLI Delux
Chip : AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+
Ram : 2gig DDR2 800mhz (GIeL iirc)
GFX : GeForce 7600 GT
HD : Maxtor 6Y080M0 (80gig, it's quite old, SATA 1.5)

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I recently got a new HD (WD5000AAKS) and have tried to format it and put windows on it. So far I've tried every version of windows i own and they all result in the same error. So I'm stuck with my older HD and a very old install until this is resolved.

Now I would normally just think its a faulty hard drive and send it back at this point. But other weirdness has been happening with my PC which lead me to believe that something is corrupting the install.

I'm also getting a few graphics problems, such as pixel bleeding (not sure if that's the right term, but basically several pixels don't color properly and if you move a window past them it effectively bleeds across the window). Surprisingly this is also present in the BIOS, even more surprising is that the pixels if moused over vanish and display the cursor correctly. Also present in the BIOS is typo's that flicker (i.e. if you hit escape your asked if your sure you want to quit without saving the "t" from quit alternates between being a "t" and being a 4, anything that can be disabled has the last d doing the same between d and " ).

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So I'm wondering if anyone knows could these issues and the inability to create a bootable hard drive be linked? is my motherboard dying?

I'm also getting a lot of rendering problems in 3D games with a rogue vertex every now and then causing a polygon to be stretched to infinity deforming whatever object it was part of. This originally made me think that it could have been my GFX card on the blink, but given recent events I'm not so sure.

Other than my Maxtor hard drive everything in the PC is barely a year old.





Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[rabb1t]

Is this the only drive on the system or do you still have the other drive hooked up? I'd say, if you haven't, try setting the system up with only the unformatted drive attached.

You might want to check your CD drive too. I've seen a few posts on NewEgg where drives didn't have Vista compatibility and thus couldn't load the drivers to run an install.

[rabb1t]

Originally Posted by Xanoth

I'm also getting a lot of rendering problems in 3D games with a rogue vertex every now and then causing a polygon to be stretched to infinity deforming whatever object it was part of.

If it's like this problem here, then yeah, that's either driver incompatibility or a failing graphics card.

I suppose though, it's possible the motherboard is going crazy and causing problems with the ports, thus causing your GPU and HD issues. Don't know too much about tech in those regards.

[Xanoth]

Originally Posted by rabb1t

Is this the only drive on the system or do you still have the other drive hooked up? I'd say, if you haven't, try setting the system up with only the unformatted drive attached.

You might want to check your CD drive too. I've seen a few posts on NewEgg where drives didn't have Vista compatibility and thus couldn't load the drivers to run an install.

It's the only drive attached when i've tried to install windows on it.

I thought about that too and tried a different drive for that. also as i said in my other post i've ran a system repair on my regular HD, and that still booted afterwords without incident.

my GF has a similar spec PC (we both just got the same new HD too and hers is now formatted and working fine) so i'll try my HD in her PC. if it still doesn't work i'll try running the install through her system too. if that doesn't work i'll know it the HD that's at fault at least.

is there a better way to check for HD faults?

but if it either works on her PC or can be formatted on her PC, what should i try next to diagnose a fault with my system? =/ I'd rather not rip my GF's PC to bits and test everything separately unless that's the only option.

[Xanoth]

Originally Posted by rabb1t

If it's like this problem here, then yeah, that's either driver incompatibility or a failing graphics card.

It's like the first 3-4 of those, although I've seen the last two happen, i would first blame the game rather than my hardware as I've seen it happen of many systems that use totally different hardware, chipset's and drivers.

I'll try default drivers and see if that helps, failing that it seems that particular fault is something I'll have to live with until later in the year where a new system might make more sense and be financially viable.

thanks

[Xanoth]

Originally Posted by Xanoth

so i'll try my HD in her PC. if it still doesn't work i'll try running the install through her system too. if that doesn't work i'll know it the HD that's at fault at least.

Tried that and the HD still didn't boot, and still didn't accept a new install of windows from her PC.

contacted the distributor and waiting to hear from them to return it.