new hardware faulty?

[Raybdbomb]

I just bought some hardware here on AT. It includes mobo, cpu, ram and PSU. When I put it all in a system, it's recognized fine. I installed winxp and let it run for about a day. I leave it on overnight and now (2nd night in a row) I get the message:

"Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM"

Googling led me to the mskb saying that it was a corrupt registry hive, and how to fix it. Fixing it worked, copying over from \WINDOWS\REPAIR

Anyway, my question is would you guess that this could be caused by hardware, or are you certain that it's a software issue...

Thanks

 

[Raybdbomb]

to clarify, i reformatted it after the first time i got the message. the only things i did after installing windows was windowsupdate and installed office 2k3, and office update.

i suppose it's possible it's my winxp disk, i'm going to try another today.

 

[Raybdbomb]

ok, the seller recommended that i reset the bios on the board, i did that and reinstalled XP from a different CD, and updated. after about 2 hours idling, it rebooted itself again...

 

[Raybdbomb]

I finall got an error message with a blue screen:
PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA, 0x00...0050. they said the issue is most likely RAM, so I ran memtest86 overnight. it did 24 passes and found no issues.

hmmm

 

[imported_anvil82]

If you have extra parts swap them one at a time with the known hardware.

I find it's the only way to test faulty hardware.

 

[Raybdbomb]

thanks for the reply...

that's basically what i've been doing. just going down the list one at a time.

 

[stevty2889]

Well I would run memtest to rule out memory issues, since that can corrupt the hard drive and cause the erorrs you are getting. Could be other things as well, but you didn't list the rest of the system specs.

 

[Raybdbomb]

yea, I ran memtest. it ran overnight, 27 passes and no errors. i've changed the hard drive (yes, reinstalled OS on a different HDD), cd-rom, and graphics card. i'll replace RAM (even if memtest passed), then I think that's the last thing I can really do... i'm not sure what to do after that...

the seller recommended i see if there are any errors with knoppix livecd. i'm comfortable with linux and i've used knoppix a few times, but I couldn't get it to boot for some reason.

 

[Raybdbomb]

ok, i tried swapping everything but the RAM, psu, CPU/hsf and mobo and each combo still had errors. so i found some ram that was compatible. I plugged it in, and it hasn't crashed since. with the previous ram it wouldn't be on for more than about an hour before crashing, but the new ram has lasted at least 20 hours now with no errors.

is it possible for ram to pass memtest with flying colors and still be bad?

 

[PurdueRy]

Page fault in nonpaged area usually points to RAM

 

[Raybdbomb]

i put my steps on this page
http://raybdbomb.com/p/mame-stuff-issues.html

the seller of the ram suggested i contact the ram maker for a free replacement, so i'll try that when i get home.