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I was upgrading my rig.

Was-
EVGA nForce 790i board
4gb kingston ram
Zalman CNPS7500 heatsink
Intel Q8200
280GTX.
Seagate 160bg HD
Running windows 7 64bit
Those are all the major parts.

Now I changed out the heatsink to a and Zerotherm Core92, and the processor to a Intel Q9550 2.83GHZ. Ran fine for about 2 days then things got weird, system would freeze randomly and I'd have to restart, eventually windows stopped booting, then I ran the diagnostic that comes with windows, didn't write down the error, figured the best idea would be to reinstall windows, now I can't get windows to install, I've tried 5 times now and it never fully installs. Reformatted the hard drive, twice....no idea what to do next. Farthest I've ever got is to the Win 7 boot screen never to a log-in screen.

How many times have you said "I think I broke it" before?

Have you tried using the old parts in place of the new ones, and then trying to install?

Yeah I thought about that, but I put the old parts in my brothers computer. plus the Zalaman heatsink isn't exactly easy to install on that board and I don't want to put it back in.

This sounds like your problem (the freezes not the win7 install)
Solution to 790i Freezes - General-Motherboard - Motherboards-Memory

and windows probably stopped booting because when your system freezes you probably did the natural thing of unplugging it which can really screw up your boot files.

Okay I tried that, attempting to reinstall windows now, we'll see how it goes.

Thanks for the help so far.

Made the MoBo changes and when installing Win7 it gets through most of the installer and then on completing installation if goes to a black screen and just sits there with a flashing cursor at the top left. Not sure if this is normal and I should just wait or what?

Alright try this

jrro_40 wrote:I had the same black screen cursor issue with my gateway laptop. The first time it happened I wiped out everything and reinstalled xp. The second time it happened i researched a little deeper and discovered the solution. I disconnect the hard drive and start my pc until i receive the "no operating system found error". Then i turn off the pc and reconnect the hard drive. When i restarted, I received the XP loading screen and everything booted up ok. Hope this helps someone else.

Just wanna say, My dad had a similar problem (constant cursor) and it was pretty much a precursor to his HDD dying a week later.

Hmmmm well... Lucky for you, seagate (ur HD manufacturer) has boot tool's available to download to test your harddrive. If your harddrive is covered by warranty (which it is if it fails the tests used in the boot test) you can get a new refurbished one for free. (happened to me) This problem sounds familiar to the situmation that happened to me.

Before this happened, did you experience any slowness when you opened up files from your harddrive?

Tried the unplugged method, no dice, rebooted and got past the windows start up screen only to arrive at a black screen with nothing on it. I don't think Win7 is fully installing.

I'm starting to lean towards the hard drive went bunk, but I'll see if I can't get those boot tools and test it.
@PuffnStuff, you happen to have a link to those tools? Can't find them on their website.

Yep hard drive is bunk, I'll have to get it replaced. Or I might just go buy a new one for sake of speed.

Sorry I didn't see this mate, been on LOA

No worries, I might be able to run and grab a new hard drive tonight be back online.

Yay you fixed it!

I hate hard drive troubles, it always leads to waiting for a new one or spending money.

Its not so much the fixing part I hate its the getting everything back online again. Have to reinstall everything.....

Okay so I'm up a creek again, put a new drive in and its still not working, completely out of ideas now.

Ok, are you sure the CPU is housed correctly and all your BIOS settings are ok for the new chip?

Also, did you properly use the thermal paste needed and also house it fully on the heatsink.


Next up it is finishing the install but then blinking cursor on restart or does it blue screen?

anyway you can check your RAM?

Grab me on xfire mate, would make it easier as I have limited time on forums atm.

Thermis is still Broken.