OK, I'm at my wits end here, so if you see smoke coming out of my typing, it's only me trying to think hard enough on how to best explain this scenario... (if I were in a restuarant they'd kick me out right now for violating their no-smoking policy 
(sorry, my humor drains when I'm stressed so badly)
Alright, onto the facts:
I just built an Epox 8RDA+, XP2100+, GeForce Ti4200 (PNY Technologies), 512 MB Micron 2100 DDR RAM, all stuffed into a Chieftech Case (Alienware clone basically). I originally was running solid after successful OS installation, but initial attempts with XP were very weird in that my keyboard wasn't recognized repeatedly, then would miraculously work on intermittent basis. That of course thwarts my getting into BIOS to change boot order and troubleshoot, so I was off to a really swell start. ahem Anyway, that cleared itself up, XP was running smooth, and things were stable except for a poorly coded Raven Shield demo which is very crash-prone. Anyway, that's not the issue, the real problems have yet to be discussed...
AFter about two or three weeks, I installed the retail CD of BattleField 1942 and the 1.3 retail patch downloaded off the net. That is the worst piece of programming on top of the coolest game I've ever seen. Here is where things took a turn though. XP became so problematic after that BF 1942 install, that I had to format my drive and reinstall XP. Well XP wouldn't let that happen, as every time I tried to install it, it says "cannot copy kjalfjkdl;adjfals.dll" file (some garbage like that basically) "please check to be sure XP CD is in CD drive". It finally did let me copy it once though, and XP was reinstalled, but even with only the OS, mobo drivers (Nforce2), and the Ti4200 drivers, the system was as unstable as a broke crack addict. The OS code was more jittery than an epileptic break dancer.. OK, you get my point I'm sure. ha ha Anyway, from that install I was getting error messages that referred to memory addresses, so I thought I either have a bad install of XP, or a bad stick of RAM - I'll do the re-install AGAIN first, then look into the RAM issue. Well.....I can't reinstall AT ALL now, as I constantly get that "cannot copy kdfjldak.dll file from XP CD" message. So I take my recently purchases XP Pro upgrade back to costco to trade it in for a new copy. No problem. They give me my money, I go to the sales floor, and now they have XP home edition, which is what I originally wanted anyway. So I buy XP home, go back to my computer, and think to format my HD first with MaxBlaster as my 40 GB drive is a brand new Maxtor from STaples. Now my computer hangs on the floppy whereas before booting with MaxBlaster floppy was no problem at all. Ok fine. I'll boot straight from XP home CD, and format it through its install process. CD boots OK, I do a format of FAT32, and then with THIS NEW TOTALLY DIFFERENT XP Home Edition upgrade CD, I get the same message that THIS CD is bad, that it "cannot copy jfldsajfl.dll from XP CD, please check to see if you're a complete moron for buying Microsoft products". I am feeling like a moron at this point, so I'm thinking there must be at least three or four people smarter than me on this forum that can help.
But wait there's more. I was also getting constant error messages crashing me out of XP to a blue screen with blurry white text that says"XP has stopped to prevent damage to your system, if this is the first time....blah blah and blah". The only technical hint it gave was the last line of a paragraph of techno garble that said "stop 0x00000000032" or something like that. Just a bunch of zeros and some numbers at the end of those zeros. The text said to look for a possible video card driver problem, but this was BEFORE even the mobo drivers or Vid card drivers were installed? I am so confused it hurts to have to write this down and think through it again. Somebody please make the pain stop.
I'm looking at returning all these parts to the vendors, as I'm thinking maybe my BIOS is bad on the Epox, and to risk going this route again is more than daunting, as I've already wasted a WEEK of my time trying to find solutions and combinations of attempts and products that play nice together (and I'm just talking about getting the OS to run well, I'm not talking about making BF 1942 run, I've learned that is feat taller than Everest for many, especially after their latest "patch"). If anyone can help I would really appreciate it, as I'm really wondering about just buying a DELL and being done with it, but I'd rather get my system working as it's specced out to be a real powerhouse with a great upgrade path.
Sorry for the novel, but I don't know how else to cry for help without sharing each example of what I'm experiencing...
THANK YOU to whomever helps, and I look forward to hearing from someone soon.
On my way to Home Depot (for a big hammer),
GS
(sorry, my humor drains when I'm stressed so badly)Alright, onto the facts:
I just built an Epox 8RDA+, XP2100+, GeForce Ti4200 (PNY Technologies), 512 MB Micron 2100 DDR RAM, all stuffed into a Chieftech Case (Alienware clone basically). I originally was running solid after successful OS installation, but initial attempts with XP were very weird in that my keyboard wasn't recognized repeatedly, then would miraculously work on intermittent basis. That of course thwarts my getting into BIOS to change boot order and troubleshoot, so I was off to a really swell start. ahem Anyway, that cleared itself up, XP was running smooth, and things were stable except for a poorly coded Raven Shield demo which is very crash-prone. Anyway, that's not the issue, the real problems have yet to be discussed...
AFter about two or three weeks, I installed the retail CD of BattleField 1942 and the 1.3 retail patch downloaded off the net. That is the worst piece of programming on top of the coolest game I've ever seen. Here is where things took a turn though. XP became so problematic after that BF 1942 install, that I had to format my drive and reinstall XP. Well XP wouldn't let that happen, as every time I tried to install it, it says "cannot copy kjalfjkdl;adjfals.dll" file (some garbage like that basically) "please check to be sure XP CD is in CD drive". It finally did let me copy it once though, and XP was reinstalled, but even with only the OS, mobo drivers (Nforce2), and the Ti4200 drivers, the system was as unstable as a broke crack addict. The OS code was more jittery than an epileptic break dancer.. OK, you get my point I'm sure. ha ha Anyway, from that install I was getting error messages that referred to memory addresses, so I thought I either have a bad install of XP, or a bad stick of RAM - I'll do the re-install AGAIN first, then look into the RAM issue. Well.....I can't reinstall AT ALL now, as I constantly get that "cannot copy kdfjldak.dll file from XP CD" message. So I take my recently purchases XP Pro upgrade back to costco to trade it in for a new copy. No problem. They give me my money, I go to the sales floor, and now they have XP home edition, which is what I originally wanted anyway. So I buy XP home, go back to my computer, and think to format my HD first with MaxBlaster as my 40 GB drive is a brand new Maxtor from STaples. Now my computer hangs on the floppy whereas before booting with MaxBlaster floppy was no problem at all. Ok fine. I'll boot straight from XP home CD, and format it through its install process. CD boots OK, I do a format of FAT32, and then with THIS NEW TOTALLY DIFFERENT XP Home Edition upgrade CD, I get the same message that THIS CD is bad, that it "cannot copy jfldsajfl.dll from XP CD, please check to see if you're a complete moron for buying Microsoft products". I am feeling like a moron at this point, so I'm thinking there must be at least three or four people smarter than me on this forum
that can help. But wait there's more. I was also getting constant error messages crashing me out of XP to a blue screen with blurry white text that says"XP has stopped to prevent damage to your system, if this is the first time....blah blah and blah". The only technical hint it gave was the last line of a paragraph of techno garble that said "stop 0x00000000032" or something like that. Just a bunch of zeros and some numbers at the end of those zeros. The text said to look for a possible video card driver problem, but this was BEFORE even the mobo drivers or Vid card drivers were installed? I am so confused it hurts to have to write this down and think through it again. Somebody please make the pain stop.
I'm looking at returning all these parts to the vendors, as I'm thinking maybe my BIOS is bad on the Epox, and to risk going this route again is more than daunting, as I've already wasted a WEEK of my time trying to find solutions and combinations of attempts and products that play nice together (and I'm just talking about getting the OS to run well, I'm not talking about making BF 1942 run, I've learned that is feat taller than Everest for many, especially after their latest "patch"). If anyone can help I would really appreciate it, as I'm really wondering about just buying a DELL and being done with it, but I'd rather get my system working as it's specced out to be a real powerhouse with a great upgrade path.
Sorry for the novel, but I don't know how else to cry for help without sharing each example of what I'm experiencing...
THANK YOU to whomever helps, and I look forward to hearing from someone soon.
On my way to Home Depot (for a big hammer),
GS
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