I built this new machine that is not quite top of the line but close to it and along the way reaffirmed my reluctantness to upgrade to the newest windows product before SP2 is out. I'm putting this in hardware subforum because it has more to do with hardware compatibility with software than the software itself.

System:

Giga-Byte GA-EX38T-DQ6 Mobo
Quad Core Extreme Q6850
4 GB of Crucial 1066 DDRII RAM
4x 160GB SATAII 3GB/s HDD's
2x Phillips DVD-RW SATAII's
2x Palit 9600GT's

Initially I installed Vista 64 Ultimate SP1 and had been in the installed OS for all of about 5 min before I encountered my first BSOD (IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR EQUAL). Finished installing all of the correct drivers through a slew of BSOD's and got it semi stable enough to run prime95 for a few iterations, and without fail it would kick out due to rounding problems.

I then proceeded to take out 1GB of ram and install Vista 32 Ultimate and was completely stable untill I ran anything DirectX and would get either IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL or MEMORY MANAGEMENT errors on my BSOD's.

I then spent the next few days testing each and every peice of hardware in my system to see if any component was defective, nothing was. Despite many posts on forums and blogs all over the internet claiming these BSOD's were attributed to hardware failure, I did not believe this was possible givin the testing. So I went back to Vista 64 and installed with bare minimum components attached to the system and while it was more stable setting up the drivers for everything, the moment I installed and activated several things the BSOD's were back in full force.

After all my headaches with Vista i decided it was time to step back to XP and give it a shot as it is a more proven OS. My initial install of XP x64 Rufus edition (all the pretty crap of vista on a XP install) went bad, similar problems to Vista. So, before I went to XP 32, I tried installing with minimal installed components and it went flawlessly. Next, I installed the drivers and began piece by piece putting everything back into the computer. Not one problem.

The message of this story for those of you building your computers, just because everything you buy is Vista certified definatly does not mean that the combination works correctly with Vista. Stick with tried and true software, and exhaust all software possibilitys before you RMA your hardware.

Spend the time when you design your system to make sure all the parts are compatible with each other,especially RAM and Mobo's

¬Cheers!

(oh and thanks Aelli for telling me to just go back to XP 64, i would have been fiddling with vista for months)