I’m building a new system consisting of an Intel Q9650 processor, an EVGA 790i Ultra SLI mobo, an EVGA GTX 280 videocard, 2GB of Corsair Twin 3X2048-1600C7DHXG memory, a SoundBlaster X-Fi XtremeGamer PCI soundcard, three SATA 500GB 5000AAKS Western Digital hard drives, and a retail version of Windows XP Pro with SP2. My BIOS is Phoenix Award. I have all default settings for everything in the BIOS except I disabled HD Audio.

When I try to load Windows, I get a generic blue screen that tells me to run a system diagnostic, do a memory check, and remove any mismatched memory or newly installed hardware. I’m wondering if I might have a conflict with the Corsair memory. The motherboard’s spec sheet states that it supports dual-channel DDR3 800/1,066/1,333, and SLI-ready memory up to 2,000MHz.

In a recent review of the 790i Ultra, you used 2GB of Crucial 1,333MHz on the mobo. Was this memory EPP 2.0, or do you need EPP 2.0 at slower speeds? My RAM is rated at 1,600MHz, but the BIOS tells me that EPP 2.0 is not detected. I have the latest BIOS version, but there is no listing for enabling SLI memory under the Advanced Chipset section in the FSB & Memory Config subsection. Does this appear if EPP 2.0 memory is detected? Can I run higher-speed non-EPP 2.0 memory, or would this create a conflict with Windows?

I also read in the “BIOS Tweaks” article (November 2008) that not addressing the AHCI issue could cause Windows to not load. I would like to eventually set up a RAID, but can I disable AHCI to load Windows or do I need to load AHCI drivers at the
F6 point?

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