OK assembled everything no problem.

powered on, nothing.

after a ew minutes and a lil luck i got it to post, but the image would flicker, and eventually cut off.

pursue this repeatedly, so I figured its either the Mobo Slot or the GFX Card itself, I eventually reseated it a dozen or so times, and the last time i cleaned off the contacts for both the PCIe interface and the Crossfire contacts (just in case) and blew out the slot some, and so far its been running non stop trying to get Windows to install.

windows would black screen in setup at the same spot until i dropped the memory back to DDR1333.

After that, setup would blue screenand then get stuck in a BSOD loop that it rebooted before i could read the issues.

did this till i took one stick out,
After removing a stick, windows installed quickly without a hitch,
now im in a vanila Win7 install on 3GB of ram instead of 4, so Im gonna update everything and stress test the CPU and GFX.

Any thoughts on some of these problems?

Swap one of the sticks and run Memtest, to check if that one was faulty.
Move one stick to the empty slot and see if everything runs okay, run Memtest again.

After this you should be able to tell whether that stick of memory is faulty, or if the motherboard has a bad memory slot/issues with 4 sticks.

You seem to indicate you were running above 1333.

OC memory speed is not much of a positive factor with AMD -- things rarely run faster with faster memory. However, OC memory is a source of issues. Also, using 4 sticks can be a source of issues -- PARTICULARLY when over clocking. OCers use 2 sticks.

The memory controller is built into the CPU. I think your CPU likes 1066 and may run with 1333 -- or may not -- depending on the motherboard. Higher than 1333 is "asking for it" Thing is, even 800 is enough to get virtually full performance (FPS wise) -- as my own tests have shown. The newer AMD CPUs run 1333 (e.g. Phenom II X6).

I don't mess with the memory timings. I let the MB and CPU automatically settle on what "they" like. I never have issues. I use the unlocked multiplier for OC the CPU (again OC AMD memory doesn't do anything worthwhile for games). A small boost in memory speed (say a couple percent) during OC "fine tuning" is OK. Of course, I have had a couple bad memory sticks in my life -- none in the last few years.

ok lemme Recap, My first post was from my MP3 player (Zune HD), So I had to condense a lot. not to mention the typos from the small keyboard lol


Received the Last of the parts yesterday.

I Took the cover off of both sides of the case, looked to see if the mainboard tray was removable (it wasnt), So i Set it (the case) on its side and pulled all the Power, USB, Audio, LED and Switch Leads to the side. Popped out the I/O PLate and popped the plate that came with the mainboard in.

Then I Put the Mainboard mounts in the holes that I needed for the mainboard.

Grounded myself to the case, and Gently lowered the mainboard into the case, and then positioned it and put in the mounting screws.

Then I connected the Pins for PWR LED, HDD LED, PWR SW, RESET SW, and the PC Beep Speaker. Then Connected the 2 Headers for the front pannel USB Ports, eSATA and the HD Audio Header for the Front panel headphones.

Next I opened the Ram package and placed the Ram in Slots B1 and B2 (the ones away from the CPU Socket), Then opened the CPU package and lowered the CPU into its socket and closed the clamp. Then Mounted the CPU heatsink and clamped that down. noticed i had plety of room so i moved the ram to A1 and A2.

I Added the Modules I needed to the PSU (2x PCI 6Pin, 1 For SATA, 1 For 5v Molex (for extra fans), and the 5Pin Molex to 3 Pin Fan Adapter)

Then I hooked up the Front Fan to SysFan1, the rear fan to ChaFan1, and the CPU to CPUFan1, the 24Pin ATX Power and the 12v 8 Pin CPU connectors to the mainboard, hooked the Side panel fans to the Molex to 3 pin adapters.

Plugged in PSU

Pressed power to ensure the system had power, system powered up and gave beeps for HDD detection, CPU / ram test, no bootable media, etc (I'd seen and heard this board boot up prior to this so I know the beeps were the boot seq. and not bios beeps even though there's no VGA present). Also tested the reset switch.

Next I opened the XFX 5830 Box, and noted the documents and how long and heavy this sucker was (seriously, makes my eVGA 8800GTS look Small).

Lowered into PCIe x16 Slot, pushed the clamp over on the rear of the slot, srewed in the back plate, connected the 2x6 Pin Power connectors. Hooked up LCD via HDMI.

Pressed Power... Nada..... System would power on, but fans would Idle at low, HDDs powered up, but it wouldnt post.

So I took the GFX Card out, and powered up and listened for the Boot Sequence Beeps. System Posted. and Beeped when it coudlnt find bootable media as expected.

So I unplugged the 6 Pin Power leads from the card and put it back in, and powered up without the power leads and the system would power on and idle, no post, with the vga fan spinning up to max rpm and back down to idle in a sequence. Which was expected.

So I plugged the power leads back in. Booted up, LCD came out of suspend, but the image was only on for a second, then flickered off, then came back and then scrambled and went off.

So I shut down to check the power.

Booted again, and noticed if i held the card in the slot at a certain angle it would boot fine, but eventually have the flickering problem.

So After removing and reseating the card at least 20 times in an hour and a half span. I decided to take it out one last time, blow out the PCIe slot, and clean off the contacts for the PCIe Interface (in case something was causing a bad connection) and the XFire interface (in case something got on them that would cause a short).

Reaseated the card and booted up gravy. Checked the BIOS settings for the Memory, power, i/o and CPU menus. Bios Posts all 4 GB of ram and correctly posts the CPU model. for Giggles I Enabled ACC and booted a PhenomII X4, but I didnt keep it unlocked, as I dont have the heatsink for it right now, so I cant comment on if the cores were stable, but they all unlocked, turn ACC back off and booted the normal X2 555 BE.

So Since the Hardware was booting stable I went ahead and hooked up the Harddisk and Optical Drives (which i left unplugged from the Mainboard and Power to avoid repeatedly power cycling them).

So I booted to Windows 7 DVD, it would load the files "Starting Windows" and goto a black screen.... and locked up, Repeated about 10 times and I figured it was a ram issue, so I went into the bios and dropped the clock from DDR1600 9-9-9-24 (the settings that were on the box), to Auto, which turned it back to DDR1333.

Booted the DVD again, and it booted and did everything all the way up to the first reboot (the "Complete Install" step) and it would get to a blue screen, then continue to Blue screen loop. I tried to get past to the Blue screen and re-start the install process at least 5 times over an hour. No Dice there.

So I Pulled the Ram Stick from A2 and setup went all the way through and Installed flawlessly with only 2 GB. Set a Username/password for my brother, and a "Admin" username/password for myself as a back up if he needs repairs to the O/S.

Went ahead and did windows update which took longer than the install, lol, and then shut down, and put the memory stick in Slot B1 instead of A2, Closed the case, booted to Windows Fine, windows recognized all 4 GB. and started the update process again, (Service Pack 1 etc).

I downloaded FurMark to check the GFX Card, and it ran the Benchmark at 40 Frames/sec score of 23xx something w/ windows 7 default drivers (I'll post when I finish updating all the drivers) max temp was 77^C but like i said i havent installed drivers so I couldnt control the fan.

I left it running today while I goto work and will resume installing software and stress testing it tonite, with Prime95 and a few other CPU tortures, as well as Furmak and 3d mark.

later this weekend when I get to my Apartment I'll grab my Ubuntu and "Ultimate Boot CD" DVDs to run memtest (we dont have a MemTest for Windows yet?).


So All In All, if the memory checks out, then I know Slot A2 is bad.

And Im still wondering if the GFX card had something on the contacts causing a bad connection or if the Slot or card is bad, but its been fine since cleaning the contacts, ran Furmark nicely no artifacts.

Phenom II 555 supports:



According to your ASRock manual Caution 3:



If using only two sticks of memory use the blue slots per the Manual:

Right now I have it in A1, A2 actually. (i was thinking A1 and A2 were blue and B1 and B2 were white.

I had both of them in the BLUE slots when it was blue screening, moving one to the white channel and it seems fine, so if one blue slot is bad I'll have to move the other to the 2nd white slot o get dual channel.

Right now everything seems stable, I'm still at work

yeah I put the ram back to Auto and alot of issues went away.


As for Overclocking the CPU, I have to get a decent cooler first,

Im prolly gonna just order a Zalman 9500 or 9700, I know those work well and I have one in my system,

His system seemed much smaller than I thought on the inside so thats why im leaning towards the 9500NT ( with the ghetto AM2/AM3 retention bracket that doesnt require me to take the mainboard apart.) I know people that cooler their overclocked X6 Phenoms with it.

After I get the Decent Cooler I'll Prolly bump it to 4 cores and see if its stable and sloly increase from there, if not I'll just bump the stable cores.

I wonder if it'd help if you tried the RAM in both blue slots or both white at the proper 1333 setting?

According to your manual:



So there you go. Leave them in the white slots and try running them at 1333.

i orignially installed them in A2-B2 (the white slots) farther away from teh CPU but ended up moving them.

I noticed the line about the DDR1600 in the white slots, but I thought it they were clocked back down to DDR1333 by the cpu it wouldnt matter, maybe it does,

So I'll move the 1 Dimm from A1 to A2 that way both will be in the white slots.

so far everything seems stable enough where its at though.


the only thing Im worried about was why the gfx card was being that nasty when I first installed it.

while Im at it, which Catalyst drivers do you recommended for the 5830 Allen

Putting in Dual Channel mode just porked the windows bootup again,

had to pull the same stick out just to get back into windows.

the gfx also started the flickering again, so i think the mobo might have a bad slot, then again it could be the GFX card since it does it both the 4X and 16X Slots.

Edit: I just updated/flashed the Mobo Bios to the latest version (didnt bother to look what it was) and Im testing the Ram sticks in MemTest one at a time off a USB Stick.

Also gonna register the GFX Card so if i need to RMA I'll do it through XFX.

Well, Mem testing complete,

Stick 1, Pass, Stick 2, Pass,

Sticks together, FAIL,
Then Stick 2, Fail in all 4 slots by itself.

Stick 1 Pass.

Though Stick 1 says DDR400 instead of DDR1333 when testing.

Now I have to Pay $10 to ship the Sticks back to Newegg.....

Or should I go through GSkill?

Newegg. I would RMA that board too.

well I emailed GSkill too,

I should RMA all 3 items (Ram, Mobo and GFX), that way I can use the same box to send it back. But newegg wont let me.

I didn't pay more than $6 to have it shipped to my house and they want $9 to ship the ram back to them. @ .67 lbs

Im not sure the mobo is bad, but I think the GFX card has the issue with the flickering its not the slot as it does it in the secondary slot as well and putting pressure on the heatsink shroud affects it. But if it fails completely im coved by XFX under the lifetime warranty. I already registered the XFX card.

I'll RMA the Ram first, New Egg says I have to go through the Manufacturer for the Mainboard on my order history? Or can I RMA that with them Too, I only have 30 days for the Ram and Mobo, the GFX card I can prolly replace through XFX.



I'll prolly end up buying a better board in a few months, I'd rather have the MSI board w/ Military Components.

What reason do you have for me to return the board? the Ram issue or the GFX.

Im gonna bring my 8800GTS Over and hook that in there and boot to linux and see if its the video card or the slots.

Also having this problem alot with watching FLASH movies.
The screen goes off and comes back and windows says the video driver yada yada was recovered... Once last night 4 mnutes into a movie and twice today (as I let my brother at least get a feel for a modern pc today while i was at work, even though he's only got half his memory and prolly a mainboard/gfx issue.)

http://forums.amd.com/game/messageview.cfm?catid=260&threadid=134427


Allen has your card done this?


Im gonna take my 8800GTS tonite to his house and test that card in his system and see if lightly wiggling does the same thing, that will at least tell me if its a slot issue or a GFX card issue.

Zilla,

For the flash issue:

Right click on any flash content and disable hardware acceleration. AFAIK is an Adobe issue.

forwarded that to my brother as he's watchin movies online with it,

I was told a faulty card cause cause the problems.

If my 8800GTS doesnt exhibit the same "Wiggle" issue i have with this card, Im gonna RMA it.

I would RMA that board just because of the issues with the RAM and especially with the graphics slot. Also a budget board and budget boards are crap at least half the time if not more. Not to insult you. Just what I would do. I would also call Newegg and speak to a real person as I bet they will RMA the board no problem.

I believe I can, the option under RMA wasnt greyed out, it just had the note under it in red text but said it was replaceable.

i think the ram is the only problem, if my video card works fine then I'll rma the XFX, which I emailed them and opened a Ticket so I hope to hear back.

Im gonna test the good ram stick in all 4 slots tonite for at least 5 passes. and the GFX card slot..

then I'll take the 5830 to my house, actually im just gonnna bring my rig to my brothers house. lol, less back and forth.

So I'll slap his 5830 in my System and my 8800 in his (wiping drivers first of course).

and go from there, either way I'll have a definitive answer tonite.

if i had another $50 i'd order another set of ram to have while the other is on RMA return. since i cant keep the one that works.

So GSkill Emailed me back, And said they could except a single module but they dont recommended it, but if the GFX card or mobo turns up defective as well, it wont matter as it will all go back to new egg for replacements.

My Brother disabled HWAcelleration on Flash and hasnt crashed since, he's been playing Total War Shogun II for like 5 hours on "ULTRA" GFX Settings no issues.

IM almost tempted not to mess with the GFX Card right now.

But IM gonna retest the memory, and force DDR1333 and maybe 1066.

I noticed the bad stick said the Mode Was DDR1333, but the stick that was good was running DDR400 (again I dunno if that is normal, but Im taking it off AUTO and forcing DDR1333.


Retesting Ram now, Thge Good stick defautls to DDR400 (200MHz) in the Memtest, I Had to manually set it to DDR1333 9-9-9-24, the BIOS had it set to like 12-12-12-30 (ha),

IM gonna Do the Same for the 2nd Memory Stick that originally tested bad, as I think they are fine, but with one wanting to Run at DDR400 and the other at DDR1333, might be and issue. but at least I need to get the good stick to run full speed.

I really dont want to mess with the gfx, since its doing awesome now

OK a Good News Update:

I noticed a few things leading up to this,

Using 1 Ram Stick:
RAM in SLOT A1 = DDR1333
RAM in SLOT B1 = DDR400
RAM in SLOT A2 = DDR1333
RAM in SLOT B2 = DDR400
According to Memtest86+.
When 2 Sticks are Used in A1, B1, Ram Runs DDR1333


However:
I noticed the Default AUTO settings the bios would give the Ram was Wrong for the CAS,
Bios would set 9-12-12-30. The Ram is Rated at 9-9-9-24. (so some misfiring going on there)

So I went into the bios and changed those settings manually to DDR1333, tCL 9 - tRCD 9 - tRP 9 - tRAS 24,
And I also changed DRAM Voltage from AUTO to 1.53V (the closest one to 1.5v but above).

I Dont know what the Auto was setting it at. But under voltage could have caused the errors too.
I was also Told by G.Skill that I could drop my ram to 8-8-8-24 Timings to "Close the gap" between DDR1333 and DDR1600 performance if I wanted too. Im happy with stability at DDR1333 and using both sticks in dual channel, so I wont press my luck.

Tested the good stick in every slot 4 passes, no errors.
Tested the 2nd stick (the one that gave errors), 4 passes no errors.
Tested Both sticks Together Populating [Edit: (Typo) A1 and B1] (DDR Dual Channel Config), 2 Passes No Errors.

Windows Boots up no errors, and quicker.

Could it have really been that simple!?

Sounds good, though you should still look into an RMA if you can't run them in dual-channel configuration.

Which PCI-E slot are you using for the video card? The orange or the green?

It is running Dual Channel (had a typo in the post).

Manually Setting the CAS Timings or Manually Setting a Voltage a lil Higher, i dont know which one fixed the errors.



The Green 16x Slot.

Yeah, that sounds like the recommended setup. All very strange. Are you off to the races now, then?

Pretty Much, My brother has already been playing Total War Shogun II, and started Alien Vs Predator This morning (Came with the XF Card), both game max details, Fluidly.

No Crashes or errors since setting the Ram Timings/Voltage.

My brother didnt want steam at first but i convinced him to let me install it.

his WEI score for memory went from a 5.4 (which is what mine gets), to a 7.9..

his hdd still scores only 5.9 even with 64 mb cache. (WD Black)

ok, he's been playing games for a week and it was stable... (Demos from steam, etc)

Today I tested the card playing Final Fantasy XIV.
When playing the image would start to flicker on and off or to a grey screen with lines, and the mouse cursor gets corrupted if in motion, and eventually the game crashes and windows says that there is no DirectX Device present and press ok to close the program. Even after exiting the game the mouse cursor remains corrupted til I reboot the system.

I have the same XFX card (and got A vs P with it as you did). I'm not using it anymore (since I went overboard and bought dual HD5870).

However, I never had a problem with the card -- stand alone, crossfire, or Eyefinity. There is an Eyefinity issue in general with occasional cursor corruption (cursor works but occasionally takes on an odd shape as one goes from one monitor to another); but, you don't use Eyefinity.

Sounds like a bad card -- or, at least, it seems like you've put in enough time on it. With registration, XFX gives a double-lifetime guarantee. Also, Newegg will RMA it if its still in the time period.

To date, in approximately 10 years of fairly regular purchases, I got one bad ATI graphics card. It had a mechanically loose video to monitor connection (RMAd it and got a good replacement).

Its definitely a bad card, it has something to do with the heatsink shroud.
This is definitely the first time Ive gotten a Bad card on arrival. the last time i sent a Video card in was an ATI AIW 9600XT and that was because the fan locked up. every other card was fine, im not one of these "I got 1 bad card lets swear off XFX and ATI for Life people", i understand that some defects can slip through QA lines, and these things are so complex nowadays its not even funny (I remember my Trident 9680 1MB PCI Card, and it was small and the PCB was fairly empty, small Chip, 2 Memory Modules, 2 Sockets for expansion.)

IF the RMA goes through, hopefully the replacement comes back fine. in 2 months I'll be fully re-located and $800/less a month for rent so I'll be able to maybe upgrade his system for giggles.

Sometimes the system wont boot up unless i put upward pressure on the heatsink then it will boot, as soon as i take my finger off the bottom of the shroud the image will start to flicker etc etc and cut off eventually or lock up the system.

I put my 8800 in the slot and none of the image flickering occured even with wiggle, the only problem from that was the ATi/nVidia driver mess (since I couldnt boot to uninstall the drivers for the ATI card.

once i got past all the BSODs and wiped the drivers and cleaned them out i was fine.
(it took me forever to get win7 stable again after this)

so I put the 5830 back in for now until XFX gets back to me, then I'll have to ship this puppy out and wait for it to come back.


[EDIT 03-13-2011 12pm]
Its weird because for a WEEK, he played AvP, TotalWar ShoGun II Demo, a few other DX10 Games all max graphics settings no problem.

Then all of a sudden 2 minutes into the first rendered scene on FFXIV everything goes back to blah.

Like i said though, I've had an open Ticket with XFX since I assembled his system, but its definately something with the heat shroud. if I wanted too, I could Prolly put a tight rubber band around the heat shroud just after the slot bracket to maintain the pressure, but why go as far as modding something thats defective. lol. (im the type of guy that doesnt like to RMA and return crap unless i have too.)

the shroud itself is sturdy and nicely mounted on the rear end where the power plugs are, the front end by the PCI Brackets is very loose, and I mean VERY, I can move it about 1/4 to 1/2 inch without force (and moving the shroud moves the heatsink and pipes on the inside as well), it hangs when its mounted in the system. which is why its only stable when I use my finger to apply pressure.

so either its loose and something is shorting, or its loose and the GPU is over heating (which GPU-Z and CCC report upper 40s and mid 50s when the flickering starts.

now none of his games Run stable, they all crash out with unknown error after a few minutes of play.

Well, as a result of the countless BSODs and the ram timing Issue, the windows 7 SFC Utility is reporting corrupt files (and the store files as well, so they cant be repaired), he’s already getting application crashes as a result, so I guess I get to wipe and reformat/re-install again, yippie!!! AFAIK Ram is good that the set timings (tested again in Memtest and Windows Diag, also ran checkdsk with the 2 switches that took 3+ hours but reported no errors or bad sectors.

On the GFX Card Note:, I have a lil Cell phone book holding the heat shroud up so the system will boot stable without video flickering etc. I’m gonna get a nice size rubber band and wrap it around the card to hold the heatsink/shroud to the card.

When I take the card out of its slot and look at it from above, the PCB is Curved/warped a little.

Either xfx isn’t seeing the picture or they are beating around the bush with giving me an RMA,

These are my last 2 ticket posts and responses:
[ 3/8/2011 10:39:20 PM] The windows driver timeout was only happening in Adobe Flash. The instances where the image would flickering w/ corruption and/or cutting off was happening at random from the time the system is powered on and is directly related to the heatsink shroud or PCI-E Slot. as applying gentle upwards pressure on the heatsink shroud would resolve the image flickering temporarily. However the card has not exhibited this problem lately.

[DANIEL_E 3/9/2011 1:02:59 AM] Continue to keep an eye on it and let us know if anything else comes up.

[ 3/12/2011 8:56:16 PM] I tested the card playing some new games. when playing the image would start to flicker on and off or to a grey screen with lines, and the mouse cursor gets corrupted if in motion, and eventually the game crashes and windows says that there is no DirectX Device present and press ok to close the program. Even after exiting the game the mouse cursor remains corrupted til I reboot the system.

[DANIEL_E 3/15/2011 4:05:21 PM] Hi, go into the catalyst control center. Then go to over drive. Once in overdrive unlock it and then check enable overdrive. Then click defaults and ok. Then click apply. Then uncheck enable ati overdrive and then click ok. Daniel



Ok, I don’t get why they would see that as a possible solution, I didn’t overclock it at all, the only thing I did was turn up the Fan speed, I noted that in my opening ticket post, that it wasn’t overclocked and was problematic right out of the box, and is new not refurbish.

So what does “resetting the defaults” gonna do besides put the fan speed back, its not a software /setting problem if I can use my finger and stop the flickering/corruption by applying upwards pressure on the shroud over the heatsink.

Hrmm….. I’ll do as the tech says but im 100% sure its not a solution, and the sooner I get an RMA# the sooner a replacement gets here the sooner I can wipe the driver and re-install windows 7

Not to mention download the 48 GB worth of games from steam AGAIN (btw, I don’t use steam much except America’s Army, but the account I made for my brother has FFXI Ultimate, AvP, and about 10 other games (yes he went bonkers downloading), if I completely format the drive re-install everything his steam account will have a record that he purchased these items and its just a matter of re-downloading them?

The HAL of the system should remain the same just storing CLEAN O/S, because playing with the ram caused corrupt files, then the BSODs with the GFX Card, oh and something I found that was corrupting files on my System and his.

WINDOWS 7 TURNS OFF THE HDD AT RANDOM TIMES EVEN IN “HIGH PERFORMANCE” POWER MODE.
I had to Override it to “TURN OFF : NEVER” to get the random power downs to stop, like it would power down in the middle of downloading and copying files.

Re: the Steam d/ls, yes. All you need to do is log in and d/l the games again. That's one of the things I like about Steam.

The rest of the stuff you're going through is so far over my head I see contrails. I do believe you're getting jerked around re: your GFX card; physical abnormalities should be an automatic RMA IMO.

XFX finally gave me an RMA Number, so now i get to pack this puppy up and ship it to Cali....

So XFX Gave me an RMA#, and I'm in the process of shipping that out,

Random BSODs have crept up lately citing, You guess it " MEMORY MANAGEMENT ",

As well as random Programs crashing, Especially Steam, (Says it wassnt installed correctly, wait a minute double click again and it works fine?), lol, Strike Fighter 2 Installed Fine, SF2 Vietnam's Installer gave an Installer Error while decompressing files, same with Europe and Israel, But all Installers work fine on my systerm. Windows Live Messenger Fails to load past teh login, and All browsers crash when going to youtube (the Flash Plugin crashes alot too.)

SO I think the one stick that test bad is, in fact bad, even though after manually setting the timings in the BIOS seemed to help it pass memtest for a while (but it passed before, then failed miserably, then passed, but only one stick, the other stick always passed regardless of slot it was in, so It shouldnt be the mainboard. I also stumbled apon a EuP jumper setting in the book, that would limit power to the mainboard, gonna take that off as saving power isnt important to me.

Ran CHKDSK /r and the other switch to pass the 5 phase test, no errors or bad sectors.
SFC/ Scannow reports files are corrupted as well as the stores (ntfs.sys is the main one that catches my eye, along with a few other dlls).

So The GFX Card will be shipped out, and replaced, which i have a temp workaround of using a Custom built "support" to hold the Heatsink shroud up to the card which stops the video card issues.

Ram is back to causing problems and Will have to be RMA'd,

But, Im gonna wait a few weeks order antoher matching pair of sticks when I order a better heatsink/fan, the same as the ones I have now, and use those and send the older ones in for RMA (through G.Skill). The New Sticks will prolly get here before the Video Card comes back from RMA (East coast to West coast = 4 days shipping UPS Ground, few days to process RMA and crap, and another 4 days back). So I'll test the new ram right off the bat, and if it passes, ship out the first set that has the bad stick, and when it comes back and tests clean he'll boot 8GB.

Im gonna run Prime95 and some other stuff again to see if the CPU passes, which it should.

I might end up getting a better mainboard in a month or so. if problems persist.

Either way Im gonna end up wiping his Drive and re-installing windows fresh, again.

A little update on the system.

The problems with the memory and windows come and go,

The one thing that seems to be causing everything though is the Graphics card shroud. The shroud is loose towards the front of the card and has way too much "wiggle" and when it is mounted in the system the shroud hangs about 1/4 to 1/2 inch from the card's PCB at the front while it remains flush with the PCB towards the back where the 6 Pin connectors are.

I temporarily resovled the issue for my brother while I am going in and out of town by placing a small paper back book in his system vertically under the card pushing up on the shroud, keeping it close to teh PCB (about 1/8 to 1/10 of an inch instead of 1/4 to 1/2.) I also kept the side off. The book works loose every few weeks or so.

Last night I gave him a visit and his system, ran some error checks and put heat probes in a few spots.

Took his GFX Card out, wrapped the rubber bands aroudn the frotn end to Put the shroud flush with the PCB of tehGFX card to eliminate that GFX issue. MOved his Ram from Dimms 00/01 to 02/03 (the ones away from the CPU, as his heatsink blows the hot air onto the Ram and stuff). re-mounted the fan on teh side panel to be overtop of the ram/cpu blowing fresh cool external air onto the CPU/Ram area.

I'll Eventually RMA the 5830, but I want to have a replacement in hand before i send it out, I'll prolly buy him a 5850 or 5870 in a month or so when they go on sale again, and keep the 5830 for myself to run that on my system in place of my 8800 GTS until I upgrade.