Sysetm locking up on windows re-install

[VenomXL]

A friend of mine's computer was randomly locking up on him a few days ago so I went over to take a look at it. The system would freeze at the windows load screen most of the time, but sometime the OS would boot, then it would hard lock a minute or two later. We decided to try formatting and re-installing windows xp pro. Well, everything went fine until the installation got to "detecting devices". This is where the installation would lock up. Several times we received a "IRQ not less than or equal to zero" BSOD. I'm assuming there's some piece of hardware that's not initializing properly, but it's awfully difficult to tell. Are there any things you guys would check in particular with a situation like this?

 

[mechBgon]

Welcome to the Forums 🙂 What info can you remember about the system (brand & model, if it's a pre-built; or the parts it's made out of, if it's "built")? Approximately how old is it?

 

[VenomXL]

It's a custom built system, here are the specs as I can remember them:

Athlon 64
Gigabyte mobo
1gb ram
6600gt AGP card
Maxtor 80gb IDE
DVD RW IDE
Soundblaster live

 

[mechBgon]

If it's possible to get details on the brand and model of

1) the memory modules

2) the motherboard

3) the power supply

that might help too. Since it had been working, and now it freaks out, I wonder if the power supply is not so good (low quality and/or marginal wattage). Another possibility is that the RAM needs some more voltage. You could also try pulling out the SoundBlaster Live as a fact-finding step, if you haven't already tried that.

On a tangent here... if the WinXP CD doesn't have Service Pack 2 already integrated, then be careful not to expose the computer to worm attack in its vulnerable just-built stage. worm avoidance ideas on this page Basically, having firewall protection before a network cable ever gets hooked up is a good idea.

 

[VenomXL]

The ram is corsair value, powersupply is an enermax 300watt maybe? Not sure of the exact motherboard model, but it's a nforce based 754 socket. I actually had the soundblaster card pulled out of the machine and it still froze.

Also, I'm pretty sure that during the whole reformat and install stage we didn't have the machine hooked up to the internet. Thanks for the suggestion though.

 

[mechBgon]

My next suggestion is to try a more powerful PSU that is still a good-quality brand, if possible. A 300W Enermax is better than a 300W PowMax 😛 but for powering your rig, it still may be strained. A 450W Fortron ATX2.0 model might be a good middle-of-the-line model to try, if you need suggestions: 450W Fortron ATX2.0 unit, not too outrageously priced and Fortron has earned a good reputation.

Alternately, take out the 6600GT as a fact-finding step, and stick an old GeForce2MX or other low-power-consumption card in there. If it begins working, then that adds some weight to the power-supply theory.

 

[VenomXL]

Cool, I'll give that a shot. I think he has an older AGP card that we can attempt to swap out. It's odd though that if the power supply wasn't sufficient, why would it have worked just fine for so long?

Anyways, thanks for the suggestions, and I welcome anyone else's.

 

[DaiShan]

As a rule, I only install Windows with a minimal hardware configuration. Take out everything except the CPU, RAM, video card, hard drive, and DVD drive. Also, make sure that the hard drive and CD-ROM are not on the same IDE channel.