Asrock K7-VM2 Problems, WinXp Setup

[jorwex]

So I'm putting a new microATX system together:

ASROCK K7-VM2
Athlon 1.33 GHz
pc133 memory (2x256 mb)
40 gig WD SE Caviar w/ 8mb Cache
Samsung SD-608 DVD-ROM
AOpen H340D mATX case (w/ 200 watt aopen psu)
stock hsf


when installing, after formatting, it'd stop randomly with errors like this:

The file tourstrt.exe was not copied correctly
-To retry, press ENTER
-To skip press ESC....etc..

so if you press retry enough, it actually works. I got xp to finish once, but it was really slow and wouldnt read from the cd drive sometimes. so after replacing the IDE cables, resetting the bios, etc...I figured it was either my harddrive, motherboard, ram, or powersupply.

i tried my friend's winxp disc...same problem..and i also tried 2 other rom drives...same problem..

so i RMA'd my harddrive to newegg and got my replacement thinking that was the problem. same prob...

i dont have any more ram to test this with, and no more mATX psu's so I'm kinda stuck.

PLEASE HELP! im thinking about sending back the motherboard or that the psu is maybe the culprit. i'll go to a compusa tomorrow to see if i can get a psu, then return it if thats not the prob. otherwise i gotta rma the motherboard i guess.

also, i noticed though that the vcore was about 1.85......is that normal for an tbird athlon 1.33 ?? that seems a tad high to me, but maybe the older cpu's needed more juice?

thanks!

 

[amdskip]

Vcore might be a tad high but I wouldn't worry about that too much. I would say you either a bad stick of memory or a power supply.

 

[Peter]

Those file copy errors are actually RAM problems most of the time. www.memtest86.com

 

[jorwex]

im running memtest now. its on its 4th pass now after a little more than 2 hours and hasnt had any errors. Ill pull one of the 2 sticks of ram out and run it again, then swap for the other and run it again. ill get back to you guys if it works or not. thanks for your help

 

[jorwex]

at the suggestion of someone else, i lowered the fsb in the bios to 100 from 133 and its working...

my quesion now is, should i raise it back to its default now that its working? its not imperative cuz its just a box for word processing and email for my friend who's not too pc literate