desperate computer help!!!

ive had computer problems for a while, and i thought i solved the issue replacing my motherboard. i know my harddrive works bc i tried it on a friends computer and it installed windows, my copy of windows cd too.

so then i thought it was my dvd rom so i tried a friends on mine and it didnt work.

the problem was, is my computer woulnt get passed the boot up screens and i couldnt install windows, i got sertian errors at different times. sometimes before creating a partician, sometimes after. it would say session3 initialization failed, or sometimes cannot find value something on line something, must restart...

so i replaced my motherboard, which came in today, and i hooked everything up, flipped the cmos. turned it on, everything works, but i get when installing windows

and i did it again and i got the session 3 initialization failure, restart, i got this problem twice

then i tried it again and i got the following value in .SIF file used by setup is corrupted or missing, ... value 0 on line in section [wintdirectories]

i tried my friends windows cd and i still got these same errors. could it be the dvd rom drive?? could it be the mobo again???

what is wrong? please someone help me!!!

i tried knoppix on it, it said scanning for usb/firewiredevices....done cant find knoppix file system sorry. droppping you to a (very limited) shell. press reset buttom to quit

not sure what this means, but im using it on my laptop right now so it cant be the cd 

HELP? 

Really it could be anything but this is probably a good place to start.

Take all the ram out of your computer except for 1 stick in the first slot. If that doesn't work then try a different stick (I'm assuming that you have at least 2 sticks in your board).

If that still doesn't work then borrow a stick of ram from a friend and try it on your board.

As I said you problem could be anywhere in your system, in most of the cases that I have seen though with what you are describing I would say that at least 80% of the time it is the ram. The problem is that you seem to be able to boot up and post but as soon as you start to install windows you have errors. That tells me that there is a very high chance you are having memory corruption.

ill try to get my hands on someone else's ram, but mine is brand new ddr2 corsair ram. geil wanst working so i returned it and bought this kind with is, i really hope its not broken, but ill try

is it possible it could be the cd rom drive? 

yes it supports ddr 2, im trying someone's dvd cd drive right now

no one else i know has ddr2 ram 

i tried another cd drive and flat cord from a friend and im still getting the same errors.

what should i do????? 

harddrive worked on someone elses computer, cd drive is good, windows cd is good, motherboard is brand new from RMA, ram should be good but no way of telling

please help!!! 

ok so now it is installing windows!!! i took out a stick of ram and it works. is it bad ram slot? bad ram? cant have 2 in at first? bad power goign to the ram remember i ordered the new psu bc this is a cheap one that came with the casencderek

Also if you find the slot to be bad, place the two sticks in the other color. My board has two yellow and two black, it does not work at all when both are in black, everything works perfectly when both are in the yellow slots though. BeavermanA

Before you do anything else check the following.

Go to the Corsair site and look up the specs on the exact ram you have. Corsair has several different PC26400 sticks otherwise I would have looked it up for you. Write down the rated timings and voltage on your ram.

Put both sticks in your board and go into your bios.

I bet that your motherboard is defaulting to 1.8v and really crappy timings on your ram. There is a reason for this and I'm not going to explain it here. Lets just say that it's suppose to do this and Corsair and every other ram maker has done a terrible job of explaining EPP to the end user.

Manually set the timings and voltage that you wrote down. Reboot and see what happens. I suspect this may be your problem. If this doesn't fix it then your next course of action is to email or call Corsair support. I would assume you have bad ram before you have a bad memory controller on the MB. 

ok the last few hours have been incredibly frusterating with a strain of events.

i took out one stick of ram, so that 1 stick was still in there, and it worked, i installed windows! installed updates, ssp2, some programs, but i did it in the wrong order, meaning i installed stuff and browsed the web ass the updates were still going , meaning i had no firewall. and i got some viruses, including the mom.exe thing from ati while downloading drivers.

so with all of these viruses, including the blaster virus that reboots my computer every 60 seconds, i wanted to reformat again and install things in the right order, but now even with that one stick of ram in, after bootin from cd, i just keep getting system3 initialization failed. i cant install windows?!?! why, it worked before. so i tried switching ram slots and doing the cmos, and still nothing, same erros. if i dont boot from cd, i can go to windows, and my ram is detected and working. but why cant i reformat???? this is really annoying. not too sure what to do, i really want to reformat bc of all of these viruses.

my mobo does support my ram. its 6400, 800mhz, 5-5-5-12 ill check the bios tho in case

what do you think the problem is guys????

edit - i dont know where to look in bios for the ram to see if it is on the right stuff. any help on that? can anyone think why my computer is doing this to me? is it a problem with my mobo reading the ram? is it a problem with my weak psu not giving the ram enough or good power? is it a problem with my mobo? i just got a new one. but if i dont boot from cd, i can go to my desktop fine now, i just have viruses i want to reformat again but cant. so i know my ram is good, it detects all of it in task manager.

so for some reason it randomly let me repair it, and i restarted and tried to boot from cd and i get the error

file \i386\vgaoem.fon could not be loaded/ the error code is 32768. setup cannont continues press any key to exit...

edit- for like the 15th time and bam it let me reformat and install windows...why? whats the problem , im glad i could reinstall to insure my viruses were gone, but what keeps giving me errors? btw i installed it with only one stick of ram again. but why the 15 times about it finally works? whats to keep a random error from happening down the road? whats causing it? what if it never happens again? 

It sounds to me like a classic case of memory corruption.

Google your motherboard and overclocking guide. They usually include pics of how to overclock your ram. You're not trying to o/c your ram but at least you would see how to change the timings on your ram.

If you have the sticks I think you do I would bet that your bios is auto setting your ram to 1.8v and 5-5-5-18 timings. Your ram is supposed to run and is tested at 1.9v 5-5-5-12, many people with problems have reported that setting the rated timings fixes their problems. You have to manually change these timings in the bios though. Make absolutely sure you know what you are doing though before you attempt to change voltages in the bios.

If you have the patience to be on hold for a long time you could call Corsair support and explain that your board works with only 1 stick in but not with both. They will walk you through what to do and determine whether its the ram or the MB.

It sounds to me like a classic case of memory corruption.

Google your motherboard and overclocking guide. They usually include pics of how to overclock your ram. You're not trying to o/c your ram but at least you would see how to change the timings on your ram.

If you have the sticks I think you do I would bet that your bios is auto setting your ram to 1.8v and 5-5-5-18 timings. Your ram is supposed to run and is tested at 1.9v 5-5-5-12, many people with problems have reported that setting the rated timings fixes their problems. You have to manually change these timings in the bios though. Make absolutely sure you know what you are doing though before you attempt to change voltages in the bios.

If you have the patience to be on hold for a long time you could call Corsair support and explain that your board works with only 1 stick in but not with both. They will walk you through what to do and determine whether its the ram or the MB.

therealFrek

but when after installing iwndows  i just plug in the other stick and it detects both. like i have 2 gigs now, running dual. i just dont want problems down the road. ill do what you said tho when i get home, thanks for the detailed response