My GA-7N400-L rocks...now if only it worked

I just got a new AMD 2600+ and a GA-7N400-L mobo but no matter what I do I craps it's self at the same point in the Windows install everytime.
I've been hunting around on the net and there have been mentions of this board having issues with RAM. Some have suggested that it simply hates particular brands and others suggest it's a matter of changing the latency settings. Anybody had some experience with this???

If you got 2 sticks of ram, take one out while installing windoze.. then put it back after...
Or go to the mobo website and have a look at the RAM compatibility list...

I've only got 1 stick of RAM, and i haven't seen any RAM compatibility list on the gigabyte site. If there is one could you link me to it?

Claw, have you tried flashing your BIOS for this board?

Even just check out their firmware section on their site. Usually they tell you just what issues have been fixed with the latest BIOS release, maybe the issues you are facing have been covered?

I feel that it's probably one of the first things that you really should do when you get a mobo. Flash the BIOS, usually that irons out some of the bugs that are lurking in earlier BIOS releases.

At least, that's the way it's worked out for me. Although, I do have a tendency to get dodgy mobos. My current one isn't too bad. But my older mobo was just plain crap. ECS K7S5A. Never buying ECS ever again. Ever.

But a BIOS flash did fix up some issues of this one.

Okay Claw, I just checked out the BIOS firmware releases for your board. Anyway, what sort of DDR you using?

There's one firmware release, version F8, which fixes the following problems...

# Fix KINGMAX DDR 433/400 can't boot
# Fix KINGSTON DDR 400 can't boot
# Fix Quamtum HDD delay too much time before boot OS

This isn't the latest BIOS release though. But it sounds almost like it could fix your kind of problem. They have up to version F11. So you prob better off to flash with latest version.

Hope this helps dude.

he has latest ver on the mobo :/ tried that one first apparantly
he's also tried two different single sticks of ram, one of which is mine!

Was it a 2nd hand mb or brand new

i was chatting wif him b4 and he said it was new. Off the subject but ... punda my old mobo (actualy im using it on this puter) ECS K7S5A rawkd never had a problem ... been running it wif a duron 900 and mx400 64mb card and it goes like the chicks in st kilda. Even runs farcry just as well as my new puter.

*edit* its running a duron 1.2 now ;)

Yeah, I've heard that some people have had absolutely no probs with the board. I probably dont have any real problems with the board, but more to do with air-flow I reckon. Anyhow, I gave that PC to my lil bro, but it's actually not working too good at the moment.

Will have to take it apart one day. Maybe chuck a couple more fans inside it, and check the cpu out while i'm there. She's been running a little too warm for my tastes. Was @ about 58C and that's just when I turn the PC on for 5 mins, and monitor the temps thru BIOS.

58c is a bit steep
im running a TT Volcano9 so heat isnt an isue ;)

I can still loan you one of my RAM sticks to try if you need. I've never had a problem with the Kingstons and we have the exact same boards. Maybe it's not the ram and the board is just plain faulty.

thats where its headed next but what if its cpu or hdd or vidcard any of those things can cause "memory issues" to b reported!

i fink it will be cpu since when i had a prob with my spare pc it was ram and first thing i tried was cpu/mobo lol

try dif cpu then! lol get a new mobo. gigbyte suck.

gigbyte suck.

17 months u been here and u still act like a newb with bs responses like that. in my 11+ years of working with a pcs some of the best and ultra stable motherboards i have had were made by gigabyte and the 7n400 series is no exception. GB aint the best for overclocking but at the end of the day, overclocking is the poor man's version of having hardware that is superior to what they posess.....anyhooo, back on topic. so Red, did you try a "bare minimum" installation? that is nothing more then RAM, HDD, a video card. removing the sound card, NIC and whatever other cards u may have installed. and seen if XP would install with just those components installed, and then 1 by 1 install the others until the culprit is found? also try resetting the systems BIOS back to its default settings, maybe there were some settings that were too agressive (ie. memory timing) that went unnoticed and will most defeniately cause lockups. i got a gut feeling it's not the CPU though, almost all faulty cpus i have seen the system wont even POST. but still, if none of these work and what any of the other guys suggested also failed then my conclusion is it's a dead board and if u did buy it new, get in touch with your dealer for a replacement.

EDIT: a couple more things just came to mind. 1st off in exactly what way does windows crap out during installation? freezes? BSOD? random reboot? be more specific. and i just remembered you have my old Radeon 9700 and that combined with a 2600+XP is gonna need a decent PSU (at LEAST 300W. 350W or more is strongly recommended) this is espeically true if you have several hard disks as well. so if ur PSU doesnt fall into that category, try a bigger one and see if it helps.

It would seem the problem is CPU related since we wacked a Duron in and away it flew. I just wish I had another mobo to test the 2600+ in to be sure it wasn't an issue with the board.

With the help of The Master it now finally works. After some fiddling around and some head scratching we discovered that his 2600+ works fine in my computer, and my 2600+ works fine in his. How fucking quirky is that!!!!