This ones weird.....

[MercutioUK]

Im having MAJOR problems with my thermaltake volcano 7+. Same problem has occured on both my Epox 8k5a3 board and my older soltek sl-2. Soon as I put the cooler on the system goes nuts. Get (XP) BSOD on bootup and plenty of other problems.
Tried the following as a test as I noticed cooler was causing problems with this:
Put the volcano 7+ on as cooler and tried to install win xp. It gets as far as the screen JUST after it copies the bus driver files for scsi etc (something like "starting windows setup") and halts there...wont move a muscle.
Put my old crappy £5 coolermaster sink on... goes thru to the next stage of installation fine (and would continue but it also lets my XP install boot without BSOD so I dont need to install again)
Has ANYONE got the slightest clue whats going on here? Is it the position of the clip on the sink? The placing of the "lip" on the base of the sink? I really can't figure this one out....

[Random Nonsense]

It could be the good old thermaltake problem of an uneven base, the overall temperature may be lower than your cheapo sink, but you may have localised hotspots that cause crashes etc. You could try lapping the base of the HSF and seeing if that helps?

[Winkie]

Is the fan drawing enough current to screw up the lines on your board(s)? It's a possible possibility

[Random Nonsense]

Normally a delta will just kill a board if the board cant take it... remember its 12v, so it wouldnt screw with anything that powers stuff liek the CPU, RAM etc

[Winkie]

Yup, it probably has a current limiting resistor in series, but I'm just trying to cover all bases

[MercutioUK]

no problem with power. The fans on a drive connector had that and the cheepo running together and no problems so it aint power. I'll certainly try evening the base up tho.
Played about with the position of the sink over the chip and now seems to run my 1800+ ok... gonna double check that in a mo but I got a nasty feeling my 2200+ is now deceased any other reason why even when still running at stock XP gives me LOTS of BSOD? Even during bootup etc?

[Winkie]

Because your chip is at 80c?

[MercutioUK]

I finally got the thing working... perfectly.... but still with the old cooler (hadnt toasted the 2200+ after all) so about to try the thermaltake on it again make sure alls fine there as well
The chip runs quite cool (like about 56 max....more normally around the 50 mark and about 44 idle) ill report back with how I get on

[MercutioUK]

hmmm...all now works fine....including the ram at 2-6-2-2-1... very strange. 12000 3dmarks though so not complaining
temperatures are gooood too... now running 34 idle or about 45 at full load...plenty of room to "grow" into once im brave enough to start tinkering