Finally all my new build PC put together last night but I have a problem - during the installation of Vista, it needs to restart, only the computer won't restart - it'll just switch off completely - anyone know why?

FYI - Mobo Gigabyte GA EP43 DS3L, CPU Intel Quad Q6600, 4gb RAM, PSU Corsair 550W VX & Antec P182 case.

Another small annoyance is the USB keyboard - it's basically useless until windows starts up (or at least the installation does) so any way around this?

 

Did you go into the BIOS first time and 'save & exit'? You will need to do this.

PS2 keyboard will be required for the BIOS until you have set legacy usb support. If you use a USB -PS2 adapter, check the keyboard will map properly. I have a dedicated ps2 keyboard at home.

 

Cheers - I do have an adapter that came with a USB mouse.

It's the reboot problem thats my main concern though, if I dont sort it, I dont have a computer...

 

Difficult to diagnose from here ...

All cable connected correctly ?? heat sink sitting correctly on CPU ?

Try clearing the CMOS and rebooting..

 

I assume so, I've had no problems installing Vista until shortly after it gave a warning that it would want to reboot the computer a few times as part of the install process - it's this reboot that's causing the problem - it just switches the PC completely off. If I press the power button manually to restart it I get an error message about windows not being shut down properly...

 

So just continue the bootup as normal and let it finish.

 

It wont - thats the problem, I get an error about not shutting down windows properly and it wants to restart the install from scratch.

When you reboot the PC doesn't completely switch off normally, so it can hold info in the cache(is this right), needed for the install to continue. Obviously if the power is cut then this info is lost.

 

Cache? what cache. It installs the files it needs for setup on the HDD. You have removed the setup DVD right, and it is actually booting from the HDD yes? If so and it keeps getting stuck in this loop, then I would start from sratch from the setup DVD and format the drive and let setup run again, see if that helps.

 

Sounds like the problem I had...

Go into bios, and change the first boot device to HDD,

then when it boots, it will look at the hard drive and not the DVD.

it will then look as if its going to boot from DVD, but will then continue from the HDD.

if it gets funny, let it boot in safe mode, then turn off and restart


Mart

 

ah sorry I misunderstood !

So the PC is booting ok .. its the OS thats not completing .. ok ..

Vista had an issue with more than 2GB of RAM on installation .. I dont know why .. try it with just two sticks .. or try Vista 64 bit

 

Vista 64.

It worked last night, although it did do the same thing and switched off rather than rebooting. But when I restarted it manually I went into the BIOS and swapped the boot order between the HDD & DVD, then it just seemed to work after that...

Another Q, is there any point in having the default first bootable drive as a floppy and will I notice anything if I change it to the HDD? Oh and where's the option to tell Vista to use all 4 cores during boot up?

Happy chappy now - I did get a BSOD though while running the Vista performance calculator thing (Overall 5.7) and it did hang when running the install CD for the Graphics card but other than that all seems well...

 

Erm, I'd be worried that you are getting blue screens etc. Sounds like something isn't right somewhere. Have you downloaded the latest drivers for your hardware from the interweb? The drivers you get on the install cds are usually very out of date...

 

Not yet - thats tonight's job. The number of lock up's made me think something wasn't right, so last night was just to get Vista installed, and the hardware working. Tonight I'll be going at getting all the hardware's driver's up to date after I've got the PC connected to the wireless network.

 

always have your first boot up as hdd, it means it will boot up slightly quicker. Also turn off seek floppy (or similar)