Open Letter to ASUSTeK

Dear ASUSTeK,

I just wanted to let you know that I'm still having problems with my new M3N78 Pro MoBo. I'm on my 2nd M3N78 Pro MoBo now. The first was defective. Now that I installed the second one, I can't get Vista Ultimate x64 w/SP1 to install. I have been testing this for over a week now, following the scientific method, changing only one thing at a time trying to get Vista to install correctly.

Please check http://insidephilsbrain.blogspot.com/2009/06/frag-moms-new-frag-box.html for details on the system configuration and my previous experience with this MoBo.

The closest I've come to actually completely installing Vista was getting to the screen just before entering the user name and password for initial user creation, and sticking at "Completing Installation .." but it wasn't.

I changed the SATA to AHCI, then to RAID, then to IDE. Each time, no difference.

I lowered the voltage for the DIMMs and for the North Bridge. No difference.

I slipstreamed the drivers from your website into the install DVD. No difference.

I know the DVD media is good because I installed onto another 500GB SATA drive I had on a different system with no issues at all. After that was installed and updated using Windows Update, I powered down and switched the drives. No difference. I tried booting into Safe Mode, waiting for drivers to load from the DVD, and even loading the drivers myself, but I couldn't log in, and the system was unusable.

I tried pulling one of the DIMMs. I tried moving the DIMMS to different locations.

To make this long saga short, nothing has worked. I'm at the end of my rope. This was supposed to be a simple replacement of a problem Dell that was hyper-unstable. I'm tempted to switch back to the Dell and live with the BSOD.

I'm not stupid. I've been building computers since 1993. This is the biggest nightmare I have ever experienced. If someone can point me to some voltage settings, maybe a way to underclock the CPU, some magic incantation. Anything would be appreciated. I've done everything short of sacrificing a goat.

I keep reading everywhere that this is such a wonderful MoBo. I haven't seen it yet. I'm about to order a new MoBo that will use the same CPU and RAM from a different manufacturer, then take this one out in a field and go "Office Space" on it.

Any suggestions?

And by the way, don't call my house, because my wife is fit to be tied. This was supposed to be a quick fix so she could get back on World of Warcraft. It's been two weeks now.