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Windows Vista Critical Conflict Information and Re-Activation Overview

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dominick32

Senior Solid State Aficionado
Joined
Dec 19, 2005
Location
New York
CRITICAL VISTA CONFLICT

Just an issue that I have been having that I finally resolved. I bought a brand new copy of Windows Vista Ultimate 32bit OEM from Newegg.com 2 days ago and have been trying to figure this out ever since.

System Specs
Vista Ultimate 32bit
QX6700
P5B-Deluxe 0901 Bios
2 X Raptor 150
2 X 2GB Gskill DDR2-800

Using a dual raptor 150 raid 0 setup on the Matrix Raid Controller everytime I would install Vista, it would randomly BSOD and throw all the physical memory into a kernel dump on the HDD. This made me go crazy, taking hardware out. Testing ram sticks 1 by 1, etc. etc. It forced a normal geek instinct series of diagnostic hardware tests leading until..........

Until eventually I just tried to run Windows XP again. To my surprise Windows XP runs flawlessly. To me this proved that my hardware was fine but Vista Ultimate software has some serious conflicts/issues.

After massive research last night until 5am and all day today I finally found a solution. Someone over at tabletpcs forum had this exact issue. There seems to be an Asus P5B or 965 chipset issue specific on Intels ICH8R controller. If you own a SoundBlaster Xfi audio card the Vista 32bit drivers actually conflict with an Intel storage driver called: iastor.sys

In some end-users computers like my own this creates severe system instability BSOD (blue screen of death) randomly and dumping all the physical ram into a memory dump. This degrades your installation of Vista eventually crippling your drives until the OS fails. It happened to me twice already. To see if you are succeptible to this problem check Event Viewer and goto critical events. You should see an event indicating the file: "iastor.sys failed "the device did not respond within the timeout period" If you see this in your event log under critical events than you could quite possibly have urgent issues with your rig.

My solution: Remove the Soundblaster Audio Card, and run a single Raptor 150 by disabling all traces of iastor.sys (using compatibility SATA mode in the BIOS instead of enhanced mode with AHCI and RAID. This will eliminate the need for Vista setup to pre-load iastor.sys into the OS)

This has 100% eliminated all of my problems and increased speed in my Vista OS partition incredibly. So, until Creative comes out with revised Vista drivers that card will not be anywhere near my computer. I also chose to ditch the Raid 0 setup for now just to avoid doing a fourth reformat/OS install just in case there is problems with the Intel Vista driver as well. I must say I am greatly relieved right now!!!

OEM Activation Overview
Now another thing you guys probably want to know about OEM activation. Windows Vista allowed me to re-activate my product key two times after two seperate formats and re-installs on the raid. On the third time when I finally fixed my computer and swapped back to a single drive Raptor 150 setup and took out the audio card Vista activation would not let me register. The only thing changed was from a raid 0 array to a single drive configuration. I guess this means Vista picks up on even minor changes in hardware and considers that license not valid on an OEM rig.

When I called up customer service to get my rig re-activated it was surprisingly INCREDIBLY EASY. You call up an automated activation service and give you telephone activation id number through the keypad. Finally, I reached a service woman (who you could definitely tell was outsourced to another country, India I presume) the english was not that well on the customer service rep.

This is how the call went:
Rep: Do you have Vista Ultimate installed on any other computers in your home?
Me: No, only this computer.
Rep: Thanks for calling Microsoft. Here is your re-activation ID.
Me: Beautiful, everything is activated again. Have a wonderful evening.

That was extremely painless. :attn:
To everyone considering re-activating an OEM edition product, dont worry about a thing.

Regards,
Dom
 
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