Hi, a friend was having a similar problem with a 4gb configuration, his
system was using 4 sticks of DDR2 8500, he fixed it by providing more voltage
to the chipset, in this case the northbridge. Try and add more voltage, just
make sure its either actively cooled or watercooled, and dont go all the way
up to its max voltage, u dont want to burn it.

"darklex" wrote:

> Hi
>
> I have the following setup:
> MSI P6N Diamond motherboard
> Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700 Quad core CPU
> 8GB RAM: 4 x 2GB Mushkin 800 mHz DDR2
> MSI NX8800 Ultra OC video card
> PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750W PSU
> WD Raptor 74GB 10K SATA HD (used as boot drive)
> Hitachi Deskstar 1TB
> Lite-On Blu-Ray burner
> 3 x Seagate Barracuda 750GB SATA HDs
> Silverstone TJ07-S full tower case
> Dell 3007 30" monitor with USB hub
>
> I am having trouble getting Vista to run on my system with a full memory
> configuration, despite the fact that XP32 installs just fine. Having done
> research I knew that it can help to have <3gb installed, so I started with
> that. Here is the story so far:
>
> -I only have 1 x 2GB stick in the machine and unplug all drives except for
> boot and BD drive. (I do this so I don't get bizarre drive letters where the
> BD ends up being the last letter and the CompactFlash drives are in front my
> my data drives).
> -Install XP32 on the first partition of my 74gb boot, no problems
> -Install Vista Ultimate 64 on the second partition, also no problems
> -Install all drivers in XP32 and Vista. So far so good.
> -Download the plethora of updates for Vista. KB929777 is not one of them.
> I download it anyway and install it, it says that this update is not
> compatible with my system.
> -Install 8gb and test each install. XP32 only sees 3, but that's fine.
> Vista sees 8GB - yes!!!
> -Connect 1 additional HD and try both systems again. XP32 boots fine.
> Vista BSODs with the standard error, 0x00007 etc etc.
> -I remove the 6GB from my moboard, and retry. Vista runs fine. XP32 of
> course does as well. I connect the other drives in a piecemeal fashion,
> booting each OS individually after each connection and checking that I can
> see each drive.
> -After all drives are connected and I've tested them, I put the 6GB back and
> cross my fingers. I boot Vista and success!! I see the drives, I see my
> memory, life is good.
> -My intuition at this point is that if Vista with full memory sees a new
> storage device upon boot before it's had a chance to fully load itself it
> immediately vomits, while if it only has 2gb it's fine. If it has already
> built a picture of its devices from before that it doesn't do this, hence
> it's ok to run 8GB.
> -I close the case, shove it under my desk, and connect everything, including
> the USB hub in my monitor. I boot into Vista and sure enough it has the same
> BSOD!
> -(I start to get a bit annoyed at this point...) I remove the machine from
> under the desk, open it up, yank the 6GB out, reboot. Vista works fine. I
> reinstall the 6GB, figuring it was going to be as before as per my intuition,
> but it still BSODs. I disconnect the hub but it continues to fail. I remove
> the 6gb again and it's fine. I connect the hub and it's fine. I satisfy
> myself that the hub and 8gb don't like each other, and now 8gb without the
> hub doesn't work either.
> -I decide to try something different. I have all of my drives connected
> (including the hub) and reinstall Vista (with only 2GB). Of course now with
> the new drive letters this install of Vista destroys the dual boot function,
> so I lose my XP32... After Vista installs I slap in the 6GB, and it works!
> -I now have to reinstall XP32 fully with all drives connected and then I
> will (yet again!) reinstall Vista in order to get my dual boot back. That
> means I will have installed Vista at least 5 times during this process.
>
> So this is where I currently stand. I have ascertained that Vista with more
> than 2GB just can't handle a new storage device being added. Adding a
> storage device and then booting Vista somehow updates the table of storage
> devices, which means you can then add more memory. Adding a storage device
> with 8GB definitely blows up the system, from which you may recover by
> removing the memory and maybe you won't, as with the hub.
>
> The 929777 hotfix does not seem to do anything. I have not overclocked my
> machine in any way, and I've run Prime95 on it while in XP32 and have had no
> problems.
>
> Has anyone else been able to get Vista64 running stably on a machine with
> 8GB? I bought Vista in order to run more memory and it's deeply frustrating
> that I can only get it to run reliably with 2GB - it kills much of the reason
> to have Vista.
>
> thx
> dl
>