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@element[0] said:Yeah i agree with the poster that thinks it's ram, i've had problems like this before, seemingly random BSODs even after reinstalls. My guess would be that it's the stick in his second slot that's stuffed because he manages to install windows wothout it crashing.1: That depends on whether his ram is set up in a dual-channel configuration or not. Dual-channel ram sockets are common in motherboards nowadays, and they interleave the ram in each bank (much like a raid-0). If that's the case then the failure could be in the upper half of the first stick. Running ram in dual-channel mode requires much more accurate timings, so some ram needs its timings loosened slightly to work. See also 2.2: If the ram itself is double-sided, then that could do it too. A lot of cheaper double-sided ram doesn't have the timings set correctly (or isn't produced to the quality the timings they've given it require), and as there's a slight extra delay to access the second side, they end up with read/write errors. This may only show itself in combination with 1, but the solution is the same, replacement or loosening the timings.3: I also notice that he overclocked. I suspect he's overclocking by increasing the FSB, which affects the ram too, possibly causing the problems 1 and 2. After all, ram timings are measured in clock cycles, so speed up the clock and you might have to loosen the timings to get it to work. He says that his machine passes stress tests easily, but I suspect that he's only running cpu or gfx stress tests, which often gloss over ram errors. He should run memtest86, both before, during and after overclocking, to make sure his ram remains functional.