Asus M3A32-MVP Deluxe + Phenom 9850BE: BSOD... help?

Hi, I just received my brand new phenom 9850 and asus M3A32 motherboard today... and I am not able to properly install Vista SP1 64 at all... it just BSOD's randomly just as it completes installation and tries to start windows. At first I thought it might be some instability at stock speeds, so I've tried raising the Vcore to 1.325V, and also the vdimm to 2.20V, but the same thing is happening. Everything else is left at default settings (no overclocking attempts yet until I get this sorted out).

Rest of my system:
- Corsair 620W PSU
- OCZ 2x2gb PC2-6400 5-4-4
- Radeon HD3850 512MB
- WD 500GB HDD
- Phenom 9850 stepping: JAAFB AA 0811BPKW

Oh and I also updated the bios to version 1002. It all seems stable outside of vista, but as soon as it enters vista, the whole thing just BSOD's. However, XP32bit appears to work without any problems. I haven't tried with Vista32bit, as I don't have a copy on hand right now.

After reading through quite a few threads, it would appear that a lot of people have had success with this board and said CPU, and not many people are having trouble, so I was wondering if anyone would have any thoughts about this?

Thanks!

Edit: I tried installing vista 64 sp1 with an athlon64 x2 3600+ taken from my other desktop, and everything worked fine. but when I swapped the phenom back into this system, BSOD happened very soon after entering windows. The message I'm getting is "irql_not_less_or_equal"... is my phenom defective?