So, besides the bodily harm on Wednesday, assembling the computer went off mostly without a hitch. After a false start with the computer failing to boot because I (once again) forgot to connect the second 8-pin power cable to the motherboard (yes, I’ve done this before), it booted without any problem. Vista installed much faster than I expected as well… I’m guessing the hard drive came pre-formatted because it started copying files to it right away.
By the time I went to bed last night, I had WoW fully patched, with all my addons and configurations copied over, running in all its 60fps glory (42 in Shattrath). I also downloaded FireFox, TeamSpeak and Ventrilo, and I need to remember my TS login which has been saved in my old computer for so long I’ve forgotten it. Next is to download and install Steam and re-install all the various games my old computer couldn’t handle well, like Half Life II.
There was just this one small problem: When I first got Vista running, I was playing WoW on my existing machine, so I tried doing something that would be very passive. I just started downloading the WoW 2.0-2.4 patch. At one point I decided to play a bit while that was going, so I started another program and it BSODed. I lost half of my download, which sucked, but even more so it planted the seed of doubt that everything may not be hunky-dory. This was, however, before I ran Windows Update, so hopefully it was just a matter of it being not fully patched. The BSOD didn’t linger, so I couldn’t read what it said, and Vista’s error reporting tool didn’t provide much other information other than some other (maybe) unrelated issues with the VGA adapter’s driver not being installed.
I looked in the BIOS again to see if there was something I missed, but it’s all newfangled mumbo jumbo to me that’s all set to auto detect and looks like the sort of stuff that I’d cause more harm than anything if I messed with it.
You know, stuff like this reduces my shame at performing brain surgery on my laptop just to keep playing Sims2. Just saying.
(Hey, we miss you. When are you ever going to be around again?)
What’s your MB?
I had a hard-freeze in Vista-64 [display is ok, but no input would registered] with my shiny new PC that was assembled by professionals.
I wound up upgrading the BIOS and things have been ok ever since.
Most BIOS updates have vague descriptions like “Addresses some stability” issues, that I figure that it’s worth a shot in the name of stability.
MB is a Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3R.
I tried using the BIOS updater that came with it, but it required SMTP installed for some reason, which Vista does not have without jumping through hoops, if at all. I suppose the logical next step is to just go to the website and download an updater if one exists…
Okay, I’m on the EP45-DS3L, which is essentially the same, except for the lack of Raid, etc.
I updated mine from directly within a default Vista install, and it’s been working like a champ so far.
The @BIOS tool shouldn’t need SMTP, though. That’s odd.
I guess there are the “other” methods to update the BIOS, but either way, once you’ve got that, I think you’ll be good to go.
I’m still not willing to go to Vista yet, but I’m also not building a new machine for myself anytime soon. >.>
Here’s hoping it was an isolated incident. ^^