Quote Originally Posted by 'Sarduci',index.php?page=Thread&postID=49139#post4 9139
You BSOD points to faulty drivers. If you could provide the full error message that you were getting I could point you in the correct direction.

Vista uses a new technique for memory allocation for programs. It loads things into random portions of memory instead of XP, 2003, 2000, etc of using static areas of memory. More than likely you have faulty or under-volted RAM. The more RAM you have the larger the voltage drop over all the memory. This is called VDROOP by the "enthusiast" hardware community. If your memory was speced for 1.8v and your system clocked it via auto-detect (ie. SPD on chip) at 1.7 and your vdroop was putting it at 1.63 then you could have been way under spec.

Other than your video card, I have the DDR2 version of that motherboard. If you setup the hardware correctly I can say that there are no major issues with the drivers for that family of board. People are running that air cooled at about a 50% OC, water cooled at a 75% OC.

Vista is far less forgiving of poor memory setups than XP was. I'd expect nothing less out of a more advanced OS.

http://www.thetechrepository.com/showthread.php?t=126 - What vdroop is.



In my opinion, the statements I highlighted in red are somewhat conflicting. From the description I don't believe it to be a driver issue, but lean more toward your suggestion of a ram/memory voltage problem. I dealt with a PC that was giving the same BSOD on a daily basis, and would occasionally reference what appeared to be one of the files of my video card drivers. The PC in question had ran without issue for months prior to the problem. I tried various video card driver versions, along with many other hardware driver updates to no avail. After trying a different video card I continued getting the same BSOD. Just out of curiosity, I pulled 1 of the 2 ram modules, and the PC ran without a single BSOD for a week of heavy use/gaming. I ordered a new stick of RAM to replace the one I'd pulled, and its been working without issue for over 4 months now.