[danys]

I'm reaching the end of my patience with a new PC I built recently.

Specs:
Gigabyte P35-DS4 Mobo
E6750
2GB Corsair XMS PC6400 DDR2
Old Geforce 6800GS
WD 250GB SATA HDD
Vista Home Premium OEM

I put together the PC about a month ago. At first it worked fine, overclocked a little using the intelligent tweak programme from Gigabyte, but then I had some issues with it hanging and resetting or running slowly, followed by a BSOD saying there was a problem with winload.exe

I used the repair console and fixed the boot problem, but still had problems with hanging and slow running. I ran the Vista Memory test which showed there was a problem with one of the ram sticks. I replaced them with some different ram and it seemed to be running ok.

However, just before I went on vacation a week and a half ago, I was running 3dmark06 to see whether my new ram had made any difference to the machine's speed and it crashed showing the same boot error. I didn't have time to run the Vista repair from the DVD before I went. I got back last night and tried to run it, but aftering installing the files, it crashes to a BSOD showing any number of different errors, but the main ones are a a corrupt registry subsystem (hive)?? or problems with ntkernlpa.exe. It says it is shutting down to protect my PC from damage. I've tried reseating the video card, the ram, tried both ram sticks separately, run the memtest (shows now problems), tried using my secondary SATA drive only but nothing seems to get me to the repair console. I've tried booting with XP and I get a different kernel error before it lets me install anything. I've also tried using a different CD drive with XP and no luck.

I don't have spare mobos, cpus or graphics cards to test but would appreciate some advice on which might be faulty. Might the problem have been caused because I had it overclocked? I was running core temp and it never went about 45º even on a full load. I'm stumped and really want my computer to run (particularly given it was a replacement for one that died when it's PSU shorted out spectacularly!).

[Roger_Kun]

Do you have another computer to try the components in? If so try all of the ones you can and you might get lucky(or unlucky depending on how you look at it) and find a dead piece of hardware causing this.

If not I'd say it's either a hardware or driver issue. Ever since XP no legitimate program can get Ring 0 access other than anti-virus programs or drivers and Ring 0 is almost always a requirement for a software BSoD. The other thing that can cause a BSoD is bad hardware. I'd say you should back up information if possible, by putting it in another computer or an enclosure, if the drive doesn't work it could be that is what is causing this. Then to a clean install of Vista. If that doesn't work it is probably a hardware issue. From what you've said I'd say it's most likely a mobo problem because most of the components connected to it are have spotty performance. The only problem with that diagnosis is that the only way to test that is to swap it out and depending on the socket that could be expensive.

Sorry I couldn't be more help but that's all I've got.