It's official I hate Windows Vista

So my quad core 6600 nvdidia 8500 gt system arrives last night, and I'm like a kid at christmas.

It's got Windows Vista 64 and straight out of the box I boot up, it gives a blue screen of death and reboots.

I eventually track that down to the nvidia drivers, update and it still happens. Grrrrr!!!!!

So I figure I will install my wireless dongle so I can get on the net and research and download, but Vista doesn't recognise my hardware. A quick trip to PC world and I come back with a shiny new Vista Certified wireless usb dongle. Plug it in and Vista doesn't like it. Much struggling, gnashing, wailing and pulling of hair later, and I was no further forward. The windows vista certified dongle has no driver for windows vista on it's website so how can they get away with that :)

I've got something to try for the graphics card , but sometimes it just seems that Vista is a massive step backwards.

Anyone else struggle setting up Vista 64 - tell me you got through it :)

Building a new machine can be frustrating with any OS. Have you run some burn-in tests to make sure that your system is stable with just the bare minimum of hardware installed? I had issues for a while that looked like video driver crashes but were actually caused by my RAM defaulting to a voltage that was too low. You just have to be methodical. Once you get everything set Vista x64 is very stable though.

Your right - it's more the 3rd party driver support that's frustrating.

Although slightly frustrating that a device that I bought with Vista certified on it doesn't work, but that could be a case of it working fine on vista 32 and not on 64.

The requirements for getting a Vista logo were set way too low. As you say, if it has a logo it should work. End of story.

I have a similar setup to what you said you just got except i have 2 8800gt gpu's, and just installed vista64 bout 3 months ago and I have yet to have a single problem with it.
Not sure what your problem could be. Is this a retail copy of the OS??

PM me the stop codes from the crashes and I'll be happy to look them up for you. Include all of error message, yes all of it, and I'll be able to narrow it down to a hand full of specific things. Or Google them yourself, it not like it is anything secret to figuring this stuff out.

Also, did you upgrade your BIOS? Your mobo may be new, but the BIOS could be more than a few releases behind which could in fact solve all of your issues.

I guess I am lucky - built my new rig over the weekend, did the initial start-up, popped windows install disc in and away I went.

Where exactly in the process are you getting the blue screen? Is it before the windows login screen or after?

Have you verified the memory timings are set correctly for your RAM? Does it pass overnight stress testing with Ortho or Prime95?

If you do run prime95, make sure to test all the cores and not just the first one.