So I finally hook it up all up and install windows.
All's good, installing drivers, reboot. Windows updates, reboot...
Chkdsk running. Ok, odd since its standard reboots. Watch tv, turn, still chkdsk. Watch it, its in a chkdsk loop. Skip it and go to pc, all seems fine. Installing more updates, errors saying disk is bad. this disk is only 2-3 months old and worked fine in last rig. Quick google says chkdsk from recovery console instead. Do that, boots fine, alls smooth.
Install some more stuff, reboot, chkdsk loop again. Recovery didnt stop it this time. OK maybe I need to reinstall OS.
I switch the 2tb hdd from the sata3 cable to a regular and put that to dvd, and right when the Win7 installer pops up to ask language and keyboard, sys shuts down.
I try again, same.
I unplug everything else, same. No hdds, same thing.
I switch satas around, I can pick language but once it shows the hdd list, crash.
after a few reboots I got it to install to a dinky 120gb laptop drive. Which im on now, diff sata cables again and seems fine.
installing LAN drivers, windows freezes. Reboot, freezes at win intro. reboot, comes on. try to install LAN again, hard shutdown. Mind you these installed fine before.
REboot again, install, and alls good...
Im going to narrow this down and assume motherboard or memory? Im quite baffled. I dont think its psu because i had A LOT moreo n it in the other system.

Tried windows memory diagnostic. Hah, ran with 4 sticks that froze at 30% or so. Re ran it with 2 sticks and it outright shut off.
Tried with 2 other sticks, hung at 1%. Ran with 1 and it crashed.
Ran with 1 diff and first time it went through.
So Im assuming bad mem and/or mobo settings, even though theyre at default.

most likely bad or incompatiable memory.

I think I solved the mystery. Memory is rated for 1.5v and the mobos auto detect put it at 1.62
A quick googling said thats not good, so I manually set it to 1.5, so mobo saying its popping up like 1.52 or so, and i ran memtest before going to the store.
2 hours, 1 pass done, 0 errors.
I tried reinstalled again and all drivers went in no problem so far.
h0rr0rs surround me at all times haha.

Could be worse. Like my issue...

Seems that was it. Even some drivers gave errors the first time around saying file not found and Id look in the folder and only had Vista folders. I unzipped now and win7 and other folders came out, so it wasnt even extracting everything.
I pretty much put back everything I saw in the original program files dir so I should be where I need to be.
before the desktop gets clumped up.
I did however conclude I put waaaay to much thermal paste on, like buttering a bagels. I pressed it a lil bit and just wouldnt come out then boom, all over.
Ill redo that later.
I ran prime95 and got up to around 55ºc .Dunno if it went higher since it crashed, heh, but coretemp says ive yet to surpass 58 or so.

Sounds like a triumph -- Mine had no stability issues until I took the video card from 675mhz to around 900mHz...it was...crashy to say the least.

OC cpu from 3.3 to 4.2 has been totally painless so far, temps stay below 60, and safe max is 99, so I'm pretty happy about that considering there are no case fans, just psu.

yea I havent touched any OC yet. with the madness of day one, ill wait a few days. 8

I wouldn't go far past 70 for load temp.

Seems fine now.
I oced it a lil to 4.2ghz, and at load it was 61,67,67,65 for 10 mins or so.
Didnt crash, etc. So im happy with it. Maybe later Ill push it a lil, but so far so good
I put my "faulty" ssd back in. I updated firmware, got it on a sata3 port/cable even though its sata2, but so far so good.
the other times it crashed was when I was playing games off of it.
So far its been up 2-3 days though, occasional reboots by me but no crashing or load issues.
Now the windows experience is being bottlenecked by gfx card.