In desperate need of help - new board needed?

[gabb]

Hello guys,

first off here is my system:
Board: DFI LANparty UT Ultra-D
CPU: A64 3700+ San Diego
RAM: 2x512 OCZ DDR600 RAM
GFX: eVGA 7800GT (Cu)
HDD: Samsung 250GB 8MB SATA-II
CD and DVD both LG

After a silly Vista Installation and a try at re-installating XP-SP2 everything fails. I got plenty of 0x00000050 and (abbreviated) 0x7F, 0x0A, 0x8E and whatnot bluescreens.

What I have done so far:
- bought new HDD (same model)
- exchanged RAM, tried different slots and non-dual-channel, etc
- unplugged CD, then DVD (need one at a time for the installation cd/dvd)
- no USB devices (USB mouse and keyboard connected via PS/2 adapter)
- prayed .. no really

So - anyone got an idea on what to try next? I'm thinking my next move would be buying a new motherboard, althou this strategy failed with the new HDD,.. so I dunno.

If I'd have to buy a new board, what is the currently best 939 board considering my other hardware and decent OC'ing?

Any ideas are more than welcome.

[Omastar]

Are you sure it's not more likely attributable to your power supply? Your PSU may be failing. Even though Seasonic is a generally good brand, they all die eventually.

And could you write down the STOP BSOD errors you see? You can Google the messages they're spitting out. For example, I got one in relation to a corrupt nVidia graphics driver install (nv4disp.dll, the infamous), and a simple reinstall fixed it.

Oh, and have you tried clearing the CMOS? Just leave the CMOS battery out for an hour or so, come back and see if that changes anything. Measure the voltage on your CMOS battery, as well. It should read ~3v, and if it doesn't, try replacing it; the batteries themselves are only about $3, and who knows, it might solve your problem.

Lastly, are you sure your SATA controller isn't giving up the ghost? You might try an IDE hard drive and see what this yields, or a PCI SATA card if you happen to have either, but I'm sure you can dig up an old IDE hard drive somewhere.

Good luck, bud.

[gabb]

Not likely that the PSU is the reason. I restarted a installation with all onboard USB controllers disabled and all Caching (unfortunately also CPU Cache) turned off. 53% of the files are copied now .... took 3 hours so far and seems stuck right now with a bigger file.

Somewhat this seems to be either CPU or Motherboard related to me. So, what would be the best board to replace my DFI atm?

[Omastar]

Well, why not another DFI?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813136158

Or

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813131568

[gabb]

Kinda looking for a OC-board without goodies I'll never use like SLI or multiple RAID controllers etc.

Hows the MSI K8N Neo4-F for example? Does anyone know what the warranty on DFI boards is? Althou I doubt I can send it in. :/