Win XP reinstall crashing

[Foomanchu]

I just recently purchased a new motherboard (MSI KT3 Ultra), new RAM (512 DDR stick), and new cpu (Athlon XP 1800+). Upon installation I had to *repair* my Windows XP install as it would not boot (it kept giving me a BSOD about a new hard drive). Now that I am farther into the *repair* process, it keeps auto rebooting upon another BSOD (which appears WAY to fast for me to make out what it is!). This happens EVERY time when it shows 34 minutes remaining in the Installing Windows/Installing Devices portion of the repair. I thought maybe a hardware conflict somewhere so I uninstalled everything except for the video card, and I still get these problems. So now I am wondering if maybe the RAM is incompatible. But if the RAM is incompatible wouldnt it randomly reboot instead of at the always happening at the same time? This makes me wonder about the hard drive and the power supply. I really have no clue, this is baffling me! Any other suggestions before I shell out the cash for a new hard drive and power supply! I would like to try and get away without having to shell out a lot more money. Thanks in advance.....

 

[BeefcakeVA]

Just so I understand, did you just try to swap out the mobo/cpu without doing a clean reinstall? Might not matter but I'm curious. Also, fyi, I had a similar problem back in the day with Win98. The system would randomly freeze up when I was trying to restore the contents of my hard drive from tape backup. Turns out that I had forgotten to plug in the fan on top of my heatsink and the CPU was overheating and locking up Moral of the story is check all the random little things and double check all of your config information.

In my experience, power supply problems are almost always intermittent and don't continously happen in the same way at the same time. This also doesn't sound like a RAM issue but I guess it could be. Do you have another stick of RAM that you could try?

 

[kursplat]

betting on the RAM . have had very similar problems on both XP and 98.
good luck

 

[TomBilliodeaux]

i had similar problems with Xp trying to install on a new hdd.
I could run Xp on a hdd that was previously installed but after a bad crash due to a cdrw burning up, I could no longer install XP, but could boot up and run it on my secondary hdd.

Resolution was due to OC my cpu.
Some how the mobo bios was unable to properly control the CPU speed, even when I wiped bios out and reset everything.

By setting jumbers on my mobo and forcing my cpu to minimum speed (Intel P700/100), I was able then to reset it in bios. After that, XP installed on the new hdd.

So if you have anything at all odd in your hardware, XP will not install. May run, but not install.
(I too suspected ram, and fortunately had another computer running and swapped to eliminate that possibility).

 

[Foomanchu]

Thanks for the replies. I ended up buying a new hard drive, power supply and cpu fan and that STILL did not fix my problem. I then went and exchanged the RAM for another stick. Now it no longer crashes/hangs/freezes at the same exact point every time, but it does still crash and freeze during the format or windows install process. So now im wondering if a got a bad mobo or cpu! Any other suggestions? TIA-again

[edit] It sometimes even freezes when I am in the BIOS or even at the video card bios screen [/edit]

 

[kursplat]

check your cooler and make sure it's making good contact with the chip ( with thermal paste or a T.I.M. installed).
and from now on, if you didn't , just change ONE thing at a time , then try it.
good luck

 

[Abzstrak]

install a clean harddrive... format it and install winXP... if it goes smooth its because your trying to do things the wrong way with a repair rather than a clean install.... but if it doesn't work your looking at a bios/hardware issue..... U need to narrow it down to one or the other