Rampage Extreme problem (won't load anything after windows 7 installation)

[radi4fun]

I had recently got hold of Rampage Extreme and when i finally got my E8600 and Team Xtreem RAM, i'm running into a brick wall or something... i've been up the whole night trying to figure out what the heck is going on.


This problem happens when i tried to install fresh copy of windows 7. at first it boots up fine and i press F8 to choose my USB drive as my boot drive, go through the whole process of doing a clean install, and once it restarts for the first time... it never goes through. it restarts and then it just hangs there, on the LCD Poster it just keeps on saying DET DRAM, now i opened up the users manual and it is no help. then sometimes it says overclocking fail right after the Asus logo, so i choose to set it back to default and all and it still won't work. so i restarted and i went into bios and choose to use Bios 2, and it worked, wet past boot screen, then went to starting windows and so on and after that it took me back to the last step in windows 7 installation, i forgot what it was called, it was right after "installing updates" or something like that. it stay their for like a minute then i get a blue screen, and it restarts and goes back to the post, then to Starting Windows, and on the next screen it says something about the computer restarting unexpectedly, so restart and try installing windows again. i've tried this 7 times with no luck.

so then i tried to see if all of the ram slots work and i think they all work. but i do not know why when the windows 7 installation has to restart, it screws up. Before i switched out the MB, i had BlackOps and Windows XP on my HDD, so what i did was just plugged the HDD with RE and see what happens and it actually booted into windows XP and all and ofcourse all my driveers are from BlackOps so i actually wiped out the HDD using KillDisk v.4.1 and now i am trying to install windows 7 and i can't. all the lights on the MB seem fine. any one ever heard of this problem? did i get a broken or messed up MB? i'm very frustrated. i have been trying to install windows 7 for the past 6 hrs. it is nearly 3AM in the morning and i am nowhere. also when i checked, it has Bios 1202 on. should i flash the bios to something else? everything else seems just fine. I don't think my HDD is bad, and neither is RAM or the CPU.

what is the best bios to have on Rampage Extreme right now?

maybe i should try and install windows XP on it and see if it works or not.



sorry for all the bad wording and all, i'm just tired and frustrated at this point.

If this helps anything at all, my current specs are;

E8600 lapped
Team Xtreem DDR3 1866mhz 2GB(2X1GB)
Sapphire vapor-x 4870
Barracuda 7200.11 500GB HDD
Silver Stone Stryder ST1000W PSU
Cooler Master V8( just got this from fry's on the way home to test out the CPU for DOA before i set up the whole water loop on it)

[Elloquin]

I had a similar issue and I still am not sure which problem was the culprit but here's what I can offer.
For starters get out of those blue ram slots with ram rated over 1800. I have Cell Shock Blue 1866 sticks in mine and they wouldn't do squat in the blue slots. After you switch the slots clear the cmos by pulling the battery the button is unreliable. Lastly, check the back of the mobo where the back plate from the V8 makes contact to the board in the area of the top mosfets. The solder points for those are a little long and may be making contact. Also be careful with the mounting around the lower right mounting hole (if looking at your pic) there are a ton of traces right on that hole for the ram slots. I use a Venomous X and had to add plastic washers between the back plate and the board. After that it just went away. And no I have no idea how the OS managed to install if that was the problem but it did Don't drive your self nuts testing the slots before I added the washers slots a2 and b2 (white) booted just fine with one stick but the board wouldn't boot at all with two. Good luck

[radi4fun]

same thing here, if i put two sticks in the white slots it won't boot but it boots fine in two blue slots. don't know why. but i did take out the gfx card and took out the battery. i'll leave it out for a few hrs while i take a nap and when i wake up in the morning, i'll put it back in and see what happens. i don't think there is anything touching anywhere with the V8. i just looked and everything seems fine. i'm not going to worry about it tonight as i need to get some rest, but i'll give it a few more tries in the morning before i go to work. what ever it is, i hope it goes a way in the morning. thanks for the advice Elloquin.

[Elloquin]

When ya wake up lol try pulling the board completely and lay it whatever ya want with no mounting screws. Then pull the V8 and just sit it on top of the cpu and see if it boots.

[clip]

Theres an option to halt the blue screen if you could get that far, Ive taken a pic with my phone cam before now as they can sometimes give you an idea to the problem, good luck

[Elloquin]

I found a pic of what I was talking about. http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...&postcount=571 (thanks jody)

You can just make out the mass of traces heading from the ram slots to the northbridge area that run right over the mounting hole for the cpu. You can also see the long a$$ solder points from the mosfets. If so much as one of those makes contact with the back plate wonkiness will occur

[radi4fun]

this morning, i took out the board and put it on a glass table without the mounting screws and all and and tried to reinstall windows and and same problem. once it restarts for the first time and goes to the final step, i get blue screens or it just freezes there. since i had relaxed the timing to 9-9-9-24 i do not get any more DET DRAM message as it dose not hang at boot anymore. The only thing i can think of is that this RE is extremely picky about the ram. is this true?

[clip]

tbh, yes

I researched a lot into ram for that board - Gskill.

[zsamz_]

this morning, i took out the board and put it on a glass table without the mounting screws and all and and tried to reinstall windows and and same problem. once it restarts for the first time and goes to the final step, i get blue screens or it just freezes there. since i had relaxed the timing to 9-9-9-24 i do not get any more DET DRAM message as it dose not hang at boot anymore. The only thing i can think of is that this RE is extremely picky about the ram. is this true?

i've tested countless sets and so far 2x1 d9gtr is best after that its hypers

[radi4fun]

is the Team Xtreem DDR3 1866mhz is not normal ram or something special that would cause this problem? BTW.....

HAAAA it worked sort of. it finished installing, then it got to where you pick a screen name and all, i choose than, then clicked on Use recommended updates thing and right after that i got blue screen i restarted and i had to choose a new log in screen name since it would not let me use the first one don't know why, but i got blue screen again. i did this 8 times, with different ram settings and timings, each time i would get a blue screen and finally i set the DRAM Frequency to 1333mhz and timings at 9-9-9-24 with everything else on auto and on the 9th try with some random screen name, it WORKED!!!! i'm in windows lol... now it is time to delete all those profiles and just have my main one.

I really want to try and reinstall windows 7 again with current settings but i am afraid that it might not work. Thinking about selling the board and picking up a DDR3 version of GA-EP45T UD3P... This one http://www.gigabyte.us/Products/Moth...ProductID=2939

I really really like the rampage extreme though, it looks soo cool and all, but maybe it is just too much advance for me? or i just don't have extra money left over to buy a new set of ram kit that works with this board

[Leeghoofd]

Think you are missing a setting in ya setup... have you memtested thoroughly before starting the install ?

For the new board : stay away from P45 and DDR3, only certain rams work and it's FSB hole galore,.... Clock for clock X48 will kick P45's butt hard... you just need to get used to the bios. No idea why you should downgrade :p

[clip]

d9-core2 dream wc fast

much faster ic7-5

ATI

[overclocking101]

EVA2000 over at i4memory forums did a but load of DDR3 testing with the rampage extreme. he helped me out a lot and has threads with certain memory tweaks for the RE in his sig that really help to stabilize the board. before you sell it try that. TBH most X48 DDR3 boards will either be ral testy with DDR3 or will oc like crap there is really not much in between.

[CryptiK]

Sounds like a bad case of failing ram/ram incompatibility. As Leeghoofd suggested, use memtest! Boot it from CD or USB and try and figure out some settings that are stable. Your ram may possibly be failing, since you finally got into windows with it set to well under rated specs.

Don't sell the mobo yet because you think it's too advanced, read the manual and read the Rampage Extreme thread here and figure out how it all works.