You may want to try with just two stix in the black slots and see if it will stop doing that. If it does then, replace those two with the other pair and see what happens. If everything is kool then, try the same thing in the gray slots. Definately use the rated 1.7v for the RAM with 2 stix and you may have to go to 1.75v for 4 stix.  
 
EDIT: BTW....another member, willem445 bought 2 of those Patriot stix and is successfully running them at their rated spex. They tested out real fine for him and now we're tuning his CPU to run at 1600MHz with the RAM.

Yes....sticker spex but, don't boot to Windows....reboot straight back to the BIOS a few times (3-4) first, to make sure that it will do so consistantly. If it does then, you want to run a MemTest on them to make sure there are no errors.

Yes, Sir.....please use this program, ImgBurn: http://www.imgburn.com/index.php?act=download 
to burn the BIOS .iso file to a CD. The installed default settings are good, you just want to set the burn speed to the slowest setting available. Here's the link to the BIOS if, you don't already have it downloaded: http://cdn.evga.com/bios/NF79_P10.iso 
 
Before you boot to the disk to run the update....go into the BIOS and load the defaults > save and exit. When the update is done, you will see a message saying that it was successful. After you reboot from that, you will need to go into the new BIOS and apply your preferred settings.

Ok, I flashed the BIOS to P10 without issue, so thats a big relief.
 
I took out the ram sticks and labeled them 1 thru 4. I then put 1 & 2 in the black slots and powered on. It gave me the long beep code C1. Power cycled and got the same result. Swapped out 1 & 2 for 3 & 4 and tried again. Went through POST just fine and I got into the BIOS and changed the settings back to sticker specs.
 
I then reset into the BIOS 4 times to make sure I wouldn't get the C1 halt again and everything went fine.
 
I then ran memtest86+ on 3 & 4 (with sticker specs) and it ran for 3:08, 4 passes 0 errors. However, I wasn't watching the system the whole time and came back to find it had frozen during memtest (at 3:08). I'm running memtest again right now but I'll be shutting it off when I go to bed.
 
I have work to do with my computer tomorrow, so I may try running it with just sticks 3 & 4 to see if my performance is any different (and stable).
 
Once this project is done (tomorrow, possibly) I can get back to tweaking.
 
Should I be concerned that memtest froze?

Well, it did it again. About an hour and a half into the second test it froze. Perhaps its another configuration with my CPU or something thats causing it?

Memtest86+ 4.20
I used img burn on the slowest setting and let it verify.

I've got a bigger problem now.
 
I was trying to roll back my graphics driver to 260, and now it doesn't work at all (the graphics driver). When I right click on the desktop, nVidia control panel isn't in the menu. I can launch it from the start menu, but it only gives me the BIOS options, no graphics options.
 
I've tried reinstalling it several times, but the installer just keeps saying "checking for system compatibility". I've left it running for over a half an hour without any response. I've also tried manually uninstalling the driver, but it just stays on "preparing to uninstall".
 
I used driversweeper (which everyone seems to love), but it hasn't done any good. It did work the first time I uninstalled it, but now theres nothing for it to find under display drivers and physx.
 
I've swapped the two video cards with their respective slots to no avail. I'm now just using one card until I can fix it. In device manager, GTX280 shows up but has a Code 19.
 
I need help with this badly! I really need the system working for tomorrow and I've tried everything I can think of! Can you help? Should I make another topic in the graphics cards forum?

I thought about that. it won't mess with the BIOS update, right?

Ok, recovery was successful and its all back to normal now.
 
Any more thoughts on why Memtest might be freezing? My SPP was already at 1.5 when I tried it, I could try it a notch lower or higher. Should I start testing the ram 1 stick at a time?
 
And do you have any advice for rolling back a video driver safely? Civilization 5 is giving me a hell of a time so I was going to roll back the driver to see if that helped, but everything went terribly wrong today. I could just wait on trying to fix Civ until I get everything else sorted out.
 
I'm really considering buying the ram that mike suggested. Its obvious that at least one of my ram sticks is bad, so I might as well step up. Twice the capacity running at nearly twice the speed... it should show an improvement. But I'll have to wait until the beginning of next month to make any purchases.

The problem I was having with Civ 5 was that in DX11 mode (its actually DX10 & 11, i know the 280s aren't DX11) the game screen would go black after just a few minutes of playing and I would get a message saying that the graphics driver had crashed and recovered. Well now that same thing is happening in normal windows applications (viewing images, slideshows, videos, etc). Would reinstalling the graphics driver possibly fix that? Because it wasn't happening before I started playing Civ 5, and honestly its the only time I had ever seen it happen.
 
Tomorrow I'll try installing the 260.99, and hopefully I won't have to use system recover again.
 
When testing the ram sticks, should I test them individually in the grey slot closest to the CPU? I know the black slots are for higher speed ram, 1600+. But the specs say just 1333, so might the grey slots do better?
 
I think I'll need to adjust all my BIOS settings to get this thing stable. But more ram at a higher speed would certainly be the kind of thing I *should* get because of what I use my comp for.

Well, I can't seem to uninstall the graphics drivers through windows. I click on the "uninstall" button and nothing happens. I get the little pinwheel for a second, then it goes away, and never launches the uninstaller.
 
I'm going to try to do a system recover back to an earlier date.

I managed to find an old ps/2 mouse (still in its original packaging) and got system restore to work once more. This time, I was using only two sticks of ram and restored back to 5 days ago.
 
The video driver looks correct now, and the USB driver loads correctly (which is what prevented me from using my m&k before), but I do get some other errors upon loading. My EVGA Precision is gone, but I only uninstalled it today, not 5 days ago. I'm running AVG on a full scan now to see if maybe a virus is to blame. Upon startup, windows gives me a C++ runtime error on C:. Is there a way to fix this?
 
I should also note that Everest is showing my MCP at 72c. Is that bad? The case fan on the side panel broke, so that could be causing the temp increase. The room that the computer sits in is nice and chilly, right around 68f ambient.
 
The reason I'm using 2 sticks of ram is because I tested each individual stick today using the sticker specs. Sticks 1 & 3 each went 3 passes without errors. Stick 4 froze the program at under an hour two times. It wasn't showing errors, but its odd that its the only stick that made the program freeze. Stick 2 won't even boot with sticker specs. I just get the C1 beep code when I try to turn it on.
 
Right now I'm only using stick 1 & 3 at the sticker specs, but my machine is running REALLY slow. I know I've cut my ram in half, but I'm running it at a higher speed. But the performance hit to the machine is nearly unbearable. It takes several minutes just for basic windows functions.
 
Any ideas about what might be wrong here?

I have the windows installation disc, is that what I can use for the repair?
 
When I boot with it, it gives me a screen where I enter my language and such. Is that a full installation? I don't know if I should be reinstalling windows right now.
 
Its important that I don't lose any data at this point. However, I do run windows vista backup at least once a week. So I do have a shadow copy of my C drive on another disc. If I installed windows again, could I just use that shadow copy to restore all my data?
 
Is there a way for me to test my HDD to see if its going bad?

come to think of it, this hdd is pretty old. 5+ years, I believe.

You were right Jeffrey. The two good RAM sticks were from different packages. I'm running memtest now on the 3 sticks that will boot, and I have matched pairs in slots 2 & 4 (the other stick is in #3).

I might be able to go shopping tomorrow so ill keep you updated. if I do buy new RAM tomorrow, should I set the BIOS up and run memtest right away? if I do buy RAM, ill get the kind recommended by mike previously in this thread. I will use his BIOS settings to start.

say I do buy a new hdd and RAM. what should I replace first? and should I attempt the windows recovery first?