vista x64 setup hangs at please wait, "ata channel 0" error in Devmanager in vista

I'm having two problems which may be related...

Besides the fact i was getting random bluescreens in my existing vista
x64 image, using both the realtek and marvel cards both together and
just the marvel (i would get ndis.sys stop errors and now a marvel sys
error yk60x64.sys and various stop 0x0000001E and 1A's)..

I decided to reinstall on a different harddrive..

Before trying the reinstall.. i noticed in device manager i have two !
exclamation marks next to ATA channel 0 and ata channel 1.. i dont
even have an ide devices and sata is set to achi in the bios (i've
tried the other two options as well).

Any ideas what these two errors are about?

Secondly, when i try to reinstall vista (clean install of x64 sp1 msdn
image, tried two different disks).. it takes forever to even get to
the "install now" button.. and it then sticks at the "please wait"
window after that, though the cursor can be moved.

I've tried taking out my ati 4870's... using an 8600 card alone..
taking all but one ram stick out.. all other harddrives were
disabled.. i tried a different dvd player rather than the bluray
reader/writer.. nothing has worked..

My power supply is an 850 watt coolmaster, fairly new, so i doubt this
is it...


I did notice that sometimes when i change a setting in the bios/and or
plug in my 13 port (4 ports used) powered usb hub and turn the
computer back on.. one set of the icy dock units will fire off their
alarm for some reason, often resulting in, after turning the system on
and off, the overclocking failed message.. not sure why this even
happens (i have 4 icy dock units which take 2, 4-pin power connectors
each.. i have tried unplugging several of them as well).

Any ideas out there? I'm ready to go insane here.

Thanks

On Oct 9, 10:07*am, markm75 wrote:
I'm having two problems which may be related...

Besides the fact i was getting random bluescreens in my existing vista
x64 image, using both the realtek and marvel cards both together and
just the marvel (i would get ndis.sys stop errors and now a marvel sys
error yk60x64.sys and various stop 0x0000001E and 1A's)..

I decided to reinstall on a different harddrive..

Before trying the reinstall.. i noticed in device manager i have two !
exclamation marks next to ATA channel 0 and ata channel 1.. i dont
even have an ide devices and sata is set to achi in the bios (i've
tried the other two options as well).

Any ideas what these two errors are about?

Secondly, when i try to reinstall vista (clean install of x64 sp1 msdn
image, tried two different disks).. it takes forever to even get to
the "install now" button.. and it then sticks at the "please wait"
window after that, though the cursor can be moved.

I've tried taking out my ati 4870's... using an 8600 card alone..
taking all but one ram stick out.. all other harddrives were
disabled.. i tried a different dvd player rather than the bluray
reader/writer.. nothing has worked..

My power supply is an 850 watt coolmaster, fairly new, so i doubt this
is it...

I did notice that sometimes when i change a setting in the bios/and or
plug in my 13 port (4 ports used) powered usb hub and turn the
computer back on.. one set of the icy dock units will fire off their
alarm for some reason, often resulting in, after turning the system on
and off, the overclocking failed message.. not sure why this even
happens (i have 4 icy dock units which take 2, 4-pin power connectors
each.. i have tried unplugging several of them as well).

Any ideas out there? *I'm ready to go insane here.

Thanks

My ram is ocz3g16004gk 2GB modules x 4 (8-8-8-26 and 1.8v is the
listed specs at ocz).. while the board is the p5e3 deluxe.

I updated the jmicron esata drivers.. i now have jmicron under device
manager storage controllers and the extra ata channel's are gone and
the exclaimations gone..

Very odd.. i wonder if this could be related with my issue of not
being able to reinstall vista on a clean drive.. i may have to try
disabling the esata port in the bios and see if the hangs in setup go
away?

markm75 wrote:
I updated the jmicron esata drivers.. i now have jmicron under device
manager storage controllers and the extra ata channel's are gone and
the exclaimations gone..

Very odd.. i wonder if this could be related with my issue of not
being able to reinstall vista on a clean drive.. i may have to try
disabling the esata port in the bios and see if the hangs in setup go
away?

Try installing Vista with less RAM present. Then put the RAM
back after the install is finished.

The slow install could be due to using AHCI instead of IDE
mode for the Southbridge SATA port, but I thought that was something
that happens on ATI Southbridges. (I associate troubles more
with ATI than with Intel.)

The Jmicron JMB363 is a separate controller from the Southbridge.
It consists of a single IDE ribbon cable interface, plus two
SATA (or ESATA) ports. When you install a driver, I believe
the driver handles the whole chip. The IDE portion stays in
IDE mode, while the SATA part can be RAID or perhaps AHCI.
So changing the driver for the chip, could change two things
on you at the same time.

Your BIOS has one entry to disable or enable the entire JMB363.
The sub-menu item, controls whether the two SATA ports are
RAID, IDE, or AHCI. The PATA interface stays in IDE mode
independent of the SATA setting.

Paul

Paul wrote:
markm75 wrote:
I updated the jmicron esata drivers.. i now have jmicron under device
manager storage controllers and the extra ata channel's are gone and
the exclaimations gone..

Very odd.. i wonder if this could be related with my issue of not
being able to reinstall vista on a clean drive.. i may have to try
disabling the esata port in the bios and see if the hangs in setup go
away?


Also, not to be a nitpicker, but you're installing your OS
and complaining about RAM stability and compatibility at the
same time. Personally, I see no point in installing an OS,
if the RAM is throwing errors. I would debug with a Linux
LiveCD, until I was satisfied the memory was error free
(did my Prime95 testing and all was error free), and
then I'd start serious OS installation. What you're doing is
OK for an experiment, but you never know when a RAM error
is going to leave a permanent mark on what you install.

How do you know, that the slow install is not due to some
errors being detected along the way ?

Paul

On Oct 9, 9:37*pm, Paul wrote:
Paul wrote:
markm75 wrote:
I updated the jmicron esata drivers.. i now have jmicron under device
manager storage controllers and the extra ata channel's are gone and
the exclaimations gone..

Very odd.. i wonder if this could be related with my issue of not
being able to reinstall vista on a clean drive.. i may have to try
disabling the esata port in the bios and see if the hangs in setup go
away?

Also, not to be a nitpicker, but you're installing your OS
and complaining about RAM stability and compatibility at the
same time. Personally, I see no point in installing an OS,
if the RAM is throwing errors. I would debug with a Linux
LiveCD, until I was satisfied the memory was error free
(did my Prime95 testing and all was error free), and
then I'd start serious OS installation. What you're doing is
OK for an experiment, but you never know when a RAM error
is going to leave a permanent mark on what you install.

How do you know, that the slow install is not due to some
errors being detected along the way ?

* * Paul

I hadnt thought of the linux approach.. what is this livecd.. it can
run prime95 (on linux?)..
I figured i'd start clean with the new vista image just as a test in
itself.. not with the intention of using that image

But.. here are some new findings i've discovered in this mess..

I'm not sure if this was it or not, but i changed some memory
settings.. tried 1.9v on the ram.. and changed a few other things,
then suddenly, vista setup was flying..

however.. at one point on bootup i was getting a freeze at "checking
nvram".. now i'm thinking this was due to my usb flash drive being
connected.. perhaps an issue with the drive...

But.. at the same time, i then decided to try to enable the raid
controller (onboard intel).. i created a raid5 array on 3 other
drives.. but occassionally i'd boot up.. and on the intel raid / drive
info screen, instead of seeing the drive models, i would see partial
readouts on them with a bunch of question marks next to them.. so i
never was able to bootup to the new vista image i made.. even on times
when they would show up correctly, the new vista image that was mid
rebooting on finalizing the install wouldnt boot.. it would either sit
at a blinking cursor at the end of the bios part.. or say bootmgr was
missing..

Now during all this mess.. i still had that usb key connected.. not
thinking the usb flash drive had anything to do with it..

I then decided (last night) to backup my "sorta good vista image" with
acronis echo 8.5.. (boot cd).. about 75% of the way it froze last
night..

So this morning i pulled the flash drive out (as it was with my keys
and i had to leave).. i pulled one ati card out.. wondering if it was
wattage issue.. and set the ram back to 1.8v..

I'm now running the backup again, i'm guessing it will finish, either
due to the flash drive issue (if that is truely what the nvram freeze
was about) or due to an issue with the 850watt psu..

So at this point i think i'm narrowing down, at least the fresh vista
install issues a bit..

I think its either the ram.. the 850watt psu (unlikely i still say)..
or something else connected.. ill be doing this bit by bit till i
figure it out..

**I cant imagine that despite online psu calcs saying i would be using
650 watts or so (with 2 ati 4870's, 1 80mm fan, 2 120mm fans, 4 icy
dock sas/sata units with a total of 8, 4-pin connectors), that the 850
watt psu wouldn't be enough power..

But one odd thing that was occurring too.. was that occassionally
after shutting down, i'd boot up and one of the icy docks (random
ones) would have the red light on and the fan alarm squeeling.. if i
pulled the fan out of the unit and rebooted it would be fine.. this
didnt always result in the bios saying overclocking failed.. so maybe
there is a power issue.. or maybe this is caused by something else
like ram issues...

I never thought that it would take this much effort to get a brand new
system working.. this is pretty frustrating...

On Oct 10, 10:19*am, markm75 wrote:
On Oct 9, 9:37*pm, Paul wrote:



Paul wrote:
markm75 wrote:
I updated the jmicron esata drivers.. i now have jmicron under device
manager storage controllers and the extra ata channel's are gone and
the exclaimations gone..

Very odd.. i wonder if this could be related with my issue of not
being able to reinstall vista on a clean drive.. i may have to try
disabling the esata port in the bios and see if the hangs in setup go
away?

Also, not to be a nitpicker, but you're installing your OS
and complaining about RAM stability and compatibility at the
same time. Personally, I see no point in installing an OS,
if the RAM is throwing errors. I would debug with a Linux
LiveCD, until I was satisfied the memory was error free
(did my Prime95 testing and all was error free), and
then I'd start serious OS installation. What you're doing is
OK for an experiment, but you never know when a RAM error
is going to leave a permanent mark on what you install.

How do you know, that the slow install is not due to some
errors being detected along the way ?

* * Paul

I hadnt thought of the linux approach.. what is this livecd.. it can
run prime95 (on linux?)..
I figured i'd start clean with the new vista image just as a test in
itself.. not with the intention of using that image

But.. here are some new findings i've discovered in this mess..

I'm not sure if this was it or not, but i changed some memory
settings.. tried 1.9v on the ram.. and changed a few other things,
then suddenly, vista setup was flying..

however.. at one point on bootup i was getting a freeze at "checking
nvram".. now i'm thinking this was due to my usb flash drive being
connected.. perhaps an issue with the drive...

But.. at the same time, i then decided to try to enable the raid
controller (onboard intel).. i created a raid5 array on 3 other
drives.. but occassionally i'd boot up.. and on the intel raid / drive
info screen, instead of seeing the drive models, i would see partial
readouts on them with a bunch of question marks next to them.. so i
never was able to bootup to the new vista image i made.. even on times
when they would show up correctly, the new vista image that was mid
rebooting on finalizing the install wouldnt boot.. it would either sit
at a blinking cursor at the end of the bios part.. or say bootmgr was
missing..

Now during all this mess.. i still had that usb key connected.. not
thinking the usb flash drive had anything to do with it..

I then decided (last night) to backup my "sorta good vista image" with
acronis echo 8.5.. (boot cd).. about 75% of the way it froze last
night..

So this morning i pulled the flash drive out (as it was with my keys
and i had to leave).. i pulled one ati card out.. wondering if it was
wattage issue.. and set the ram back to 1.8v..

I'm now running the backup again, i'm guessing it will finish, either
due to the flash drive issue (if that is truely what the nvram freeze
was about) or due to an issue with the 850watt psu..

So at this point i think i'm narrowing down, at least the fresh vista
install issues a bit..

I think its either the ram.. the 850watt psu (unlikely i still say)..
or something else connected.. ill be doing this bit by bit till i
figure it out..

**I cant imagine that despite online psu calcs saying i would be using
650 watts or so (with 2 ati 4870's, 1 80mm fan, 2 120mm fans, 4 icy
dock sas/sata units with a total of 8, 4-pin connectors), that the 850
watt psu wouldn't be enough power..

But one odd thing that was occurring too.. was that occassionally
after shutting down, i'd boot up and one of the icy docks (random
ones) would have the red light on and the fan alarm squeeling.. if i
pulled the fan out of the unit and rebooted it would be fine.. this
didnt always result in the bios saying overclocking failed.. so maybe
there is a power issue.. or maybe this is caused by something else
like ram issues...

I never thought that it would take this much effort to get a brand new
system working.. this is pretty frustrating...

Btw.. i did try doing pairs of ram at a time as well as a single ram
chip..

markm75 wrote:
On Oct 10, 10:19 am, markm75 wrote:
On Oct 9, 9:37 pm, Paul wrote:



Paul wrote:
markm75 wrote:
I updated the jmicron esata drivers.. i now have jmicron under device
manager storage controllers and the extra ata channel's are gone and
the exclaimations gone..
Very odd.. i wonder if this could be related with my issue of not
being able to reinstall vista on a clean drive.. i may have to try
disabling the esata port in the bios and see if the hangs in setup go
away?
Also, not to be a nitpicker, but you're installing your OS
and complaining about RAM stability and compatibility at the
same time. Personally, I see no point in installing an OS,
if the RAM is throwing errors. I would debug with a Linux
LiveCD, until I was satisfied the memory was error free
(did my Prime95 testing and all was error free), and
then I'd start serious OS installation. What you're doing is
OK for an experiment, but you never know when a RAM error
is going to leave a permanent mark on what you install.
How do you know, that the slow install is not due to some
errors being detected along the way ?
Paul
I hadnt thought of the linux approach.. what is this livecd.. it can
run prime95 (on linux?)..
I figured i'd start clean with the new vista image just as a test in
itself.. not with the intention of using that image

But.. here are some new findings i've discovered in this mess..

I'm not sure if this was it or not, but i changed some memory
settings.. tried 1.9v on the ram.. and changed a few other things,
then suddenly, vista setup was flying..

however.. at one point on bootup i was getting a freeze at "checking
nvram".. now i'm thinking this was due to my usb flash drive being
connected.. perhaps an issue with the drive...

But.. at the same time, i then decided to try to enable the raid
controller (onboard intel).. i created a raid5 array on 3 other
drives.. but occassionally i'd boot up.. and on the intel raid / drive
info screen, instead of seeing the drive models, i would see partial
readouts on them with a bunch of question marks next to them.. so i
never was able to bootup to the new vista image i made.. even on times
when they would show up correctly, the new vista image that was mid
rebooting on finalizing the install wouldnt boot.. it would either sit
at a blinking cursor at the end of the bios part.. or say bootmgr was
missing..

Now during all this mess.. i still had that usb key connected.. not
thinking the usb flash drive had anything to do with it..

I then decided (last night) to backup my "sorta good vista image" with
acronis echo 8.5.. (boot cd).. about 75% of the way it froze last
night..

So this morning i pulled the flash drive out (as it was with my keys
and i had to leave).. i pulled one ati card out.. wondering if it was
wattage issue.. and set the ram back to 1.8v..

I'm now running the backup again, i'm guessing it will finish, either
due to the flash drive issue (if that is truely what the nvram freeze
was about) or due to an issue with the 850watt psu..

So at this point i think i'm narrowing down, at least the fresh vista
install issues a bit..

I think its either the ram.. the 850watt psu (unlikely i still say)..
or something else connected.. ill be doing this bit by bit till i
figure it out..

**I cant imagine that despite online psu calcs saying i would be using
650 watts or so (with 2 ati 4870's, 1 80mm fan, 2 120mm fans, 4 icy
dock sas/sata units with a total of 8, 4-pin connectors), that the 850
watt psu wouldn't be enough power..

But one odd thing that was occurring too.. was that occassionally
after shutting down, i'd boot up and one of the icy docks (random
ones) would have the red light on and the fan alarm squeeling.. if i
pulled the fan out of the unit and rebooted it would be fine.. this
didnt always result in the bios saying overclocking failed.. so maybe
there is a power issue.. or maybe this is caused by something else
like ram issues...

I never thought that it would take this much effort to get a brand new
system working.. this is pretty frustrating...

Btw.. i did try doing pairs of ram at a time as well as a single ram
chip..


Knoppix (knopper.net) and Ubuntu (ubuntu.com) have LiveCD options.
I have one of each here.

If you go to mersenne.org and look at their download options, they
have Windows and Linux versions. And with the Linux version, if you
create four separate folders, and put a copy of the executable in
each one, you can run four instances of Prime95 (giving each a custom
memory assignment, like less than one quarter of the RAM each). That
is one thing I can use as an acceptance test, after playing with the
RAM.

For the LiveCD, that is a 700MB download, plus the use of a tool that
knows how to convert an ISO9660 file into a CD. Knoppix also has a
DVD version, but I don't have a DVD burner, so I have to stick with
an older release that offers a CD.

Paul

On Oct 10, 4:57*pm, Paul wrote:
markm75 wrote:
On Oct 10, 10:19 am, markm75 wrote:
On Oct 9, 9:37 pm, Paul wrote:

Paul wrote:
markm75 wrote:
I updated the jmicron esata drivers.. i now have jmicron under device
manager storage controllers and the extra ata channel's are gone and
the exclaimations gone..
Very odd.. i wonder if this could be related with my issue of not
being able to reinstall vista on a clean drive.. i may have to try
disabling the esata port in the bios and see if the hangs in setup go
away?
Also, not to be a nitpicker, but you're installing your OS
and complaining about RAM stability and compatibility at the
same time. Personally, I see no point in installing an OS,
if the RAM is throwing errors. I would debug with a Linux
LiveCD, until I was satisfied the memory was error free
(did my Prime95 testing and all was error free), and
then I'd start serious OS installation. What you're doing is
OK for an experiment, but you never know when a RAM error
is going to leave a permanent mark on what you install.
How do you know, that the slow install is not due to some
errors being detected along the way ?
* * Paul
I hadnt thought of the linux approach.. what is this livecd.. it can
run prime95 (on linux?)..
I figured i'd start clean with the new vista image just as a test in
itself.. not with the intention of using that image

But.. here are some new findings i've discovered in this mess..

I'm not sure if this was it or not, but i changed some memory
settings.. tried 1.9v on the ram.. and changed a few other things,
then suddenly, vista setup was flying..

however.. at one point on bootup i was getting a freeze at "checking
nvram".. now i'm thinking this was due to my usb flash drive being
connected.. perhaps an issue with the drive...

But.. at the same time, i then decided to try to enable the raid
controller (onboard intel).. i created a raid5 array on 3 other
drives.. but occassionally i'd boot up.. and on the intel raid / drive
info screen, instead of seeing the drive models, i would see partial
readouts on them with a bunch of question marks next to them.. so i
never was able to bootup to the new vista image i made.. even on times
when they would show up correctly, the new vista image that was mid
rebooting on finalizing the install wouldnt boot.. it would either sit
at a blinking cursor at the end of the bios part.. or say bootmgr was
missing..

Now during all this mess.. i still had that usb key connected.. not
thinking the usb flash drive had anything to do with it..

I then decided (last night) to backup my "sorta good vista image" with
acronis echo 8.5.. (boot cd).. about 75% of the way it froze last
night..

So this morning i pulled the flash drive out (as it was with my keys
and i had to leave).. i pulled one ati card out.. wondering if it was
wattage issue.. and set the ram back to 1.8v..

I'm now running the backup again, i'm guessing it will finish, either
due to the flash drive issue (if that is truely what the nvram freeze
was about) or due to an issue with the 850watt psu..

So at this point i think i'm narrowing down, at least the fresh vista
install issues a bit..

I think its either the ram.. the 850watt psu (unlikely i still say)..
or something else connected.. ill be doing this bit by bit till i
figure it out..

**I cant imagine that despite online psu calcs saying i would be using
650 watts or so (with 2 ati 4870's, 1 80mm fan, 2 120mm fans, 4 icy
dock sas/sata units with a total of 8, 4-pin connectors), that the 850
watt psu wouldn't be enough power..

But one odd thing that was occurring too.. was that occassionally
after shutting down, i'd boot up and one of the icy docks (random
ones) would have the red light on and the fan alarm squeeling.. if i
pulled the fan out of the unit and rebooted it would be fine.. this
didnt always result in the bios saying overclocking failed.. so maybe
there is a power issue.. or maybe this is caused by something else
like ram issues...

I never thought that it would take this much effort to get a brand new
system working.. this is pretty frustrating...

Btw.. i did try doing pairs of ram at a time as well as a single ram
chip..

Knoppix (knopper.net) and Ubuntu (ubuntu.com) have LiveCD options.
I have one of each here.

If you go to mersenne.org and look at their download options, they
have Windows and Linux versions. And with the Linux version, if you
create four separate folders, and put a copy of the executable in
each one, you can run four instances of Prime95 (giving each a custom
memory assignment, like less than one quarter of the RAM each). That
is one thing I can use as an acceptance test, after playing with the
RAM.

For the LiveCD, that is a 700MB download, plus the use of a tool that
knows how to convert an ISO9660 file into a CD. Knoppix also has a
DVD version, but I don't have a DVD burner, so I have to stick with
an older release that offers a CD.

* * Paul

I'm downloading mprime2414.tar.gz(659KB) from the one site.. is there
a linux version of OCCT? Ill have to check and see.. i preferred that
tool, as it can tell you whether your stable within about 2hours
instead of 24... Althought i guess i could do small ffts and use
prime95 for 2 hours..

When you say make 4 folders..i'm assuming you meant, use, say nero,
burn 4 folders of this tool onto it, once linux is up, stick in this
cd and run away.

thanks again for the help.. this will save me some crashing mayhem on
the harddrives

On Oct 10, 4:57*pm, Paul wrote:
markm75 wrote:
On Oct 10, 10:19 am, markm75 wrote:
On Oct 9, 9:37 pm, Paul wrote:

Paul wrote:
markm75 wrote:
I updated the jmicron esata drivers.. i now have jmicron under device
manager storage controllers and the extra ata channel's are gone and
the exclaimations gone..
Very odd.. i wonder if this could be related with my issue of not
being able to reinstall vista on a clean drive.. i may have to try
disabling the esata port in the bios and see if the hangs in setup go
away?
Also, not to be a nitpicker, but you're installing your OS
and complaining about RAM stability and compatibility at the
same time. Personally, I see no point in installing an OS,
if the RAM is throwing errors. I would debug with a Linux
LiveCD, until I was satisfied the memory was error free
(did my Prime95 testing and all was error free), and
then I'd start serious OS installation. What you're doing is
OK for an experiment, but you never know when a RAM error
is going to leave a permanent mark on what you install.
How do you know, that the slow install is not due to some
errors being detected along the way ?
* * Paul
I hadnt thought of the linux approach.. what is this livecd.. it can
run prime95 (on linux?)..
I figured i'd start clean with the new vista image just as a test in
itself.. not with the intention of using that image

But.. here are some new findings i've discovered in this mess..

I'm not sure if this was it or not, but i changed some memory
settings.. tried 1.9v on the ram.. and changed a few other things,
then suddenly, vista setup was flying..

however.. at one point on bootup i was getting a freeze at "checking
nvram".. now i'm thinking this was due to my usb flash drive being
connected.. perhaps an issue with the drive...

But.. at the same time, i then decided to try to enable the raid
controller (onboard intel).. i created a raid5 array on 3 other
drives.. but occassionally i'd boot up.. and on the intel raid / drive
info screen, instead of seeing the drive models, i would see partial
readouts on them with a bunch of question marks next to them.. so i
never was able to bootup to the new vista image i made.. even on times
when they would show up correctly, the new vista image that was mid
rebooting on finalizing the install wouldnt boot.. it would either sit
at a blinking cursor at the end of the bios part.. or say bootmgr was
missing..

Now during all this mess.. i still had that usb key connected.. not
thinking the usb flash drive had anything to do with it..

I then decided (last night) to backup my "sorta good vista image" with
acronis echo 8.5.. (boot cd).. about 75% of the way it froze last
night..

So this morning i pulled the flash drive out (as it was with my keys
and i had to leave).. i pulled one ati card out.. wondering if it was
wattage issue.. and set the ram back to 1.8v..

I'm now running the backup again, i'm guessing it will finish, either
due to the flash drive issue (if that is truely what the nvram freeze
was about) or due to an issue with the 850watt psu..

So at this point i think i'm narrowing down, at least the fresh vista
install issues a bit..

I think its either the ram.. the 850watt psu (unlikely i still say)..
or something else connected.. ill be doing this bit by bit till i
figure it out..

**I cant imagine that despite online psu calcs saying i would be using
650 watts or so (with 2 ati 4870's, 1 80mm fan, 2 120mm fans, 4 icy
dock sas/sata units with a total of 8, 4-pin connectors), that the 850
watt psu wouldn't be enough power..

But one odd thing that was occurring too.. was that occassionally
after shutting down, i'd boot up and one of the icy docks (random
ones) would have the red light on and the fan alarm squeeling.. if i
pulled the fan out of the unit and rebooted it would be fine.. this
didnt always result in the bios saying overclocking failed.. so maybe
there is a power issue.. or maybe this is caused by something else
like ram issues...

I never thought that it would take this much effort to get a brand new
system working.. this is pretty frustrating...

Btw.. i did try doing pairs of ram at a time as well as a single ram
chip..

Knoppix (knopper.net) and Ubuntu (ubuntu.com) have LiveCD options.
I have one of each here.

If you go to mersenne.org and look at their download options, they
have Windows and Linux versions. And with the Linux version, if you
create four separate folders, and put a copy of the executable in
each one, you can run four instances of Prime95 (giving each a custom
memory assignment, like less than one quarter of the RAM each). That
is one thing I can use as an acceptance test, after playing with the
RAM.

For the LiveCD, that is a 700MB download, plus the use of a tool that
knows how to convert an ISO9660 file into a CD. Knoppix also has a
DVD version, but I don't have a DVD burner, so I have to stick with
an older release that offers a CD.

* * Paul

I should add, that prime program i'm downloading from mersenne.org..
looks like mprime not prime95.. i dont see a prime95 for linux per
say?