XP Pro Freezes When Installing

[cheapherk]

My son's computer suddenly began freezing at the Windows XP boot screen. I had just reformatted a few weeks ago. Nothing new had been installed lately or anything updated lately. I was able to boot into safe mode and tried a system restore, but that didn't help.

Since there wasn't much on it, I decided to reformat again. The problem is it will let me delete the old partition, create and format a new one, and begin to install, but once it reaches "34 minutes left", it freezes and will go no further. I've tried numerous times. I also went into the bios and set it at "Used Fail Safe Settings" and that did not help.

The computer- Asus A7M266, 512 MB OCZ PC2100 RAM, WD 40 Gig HD, Geforce 5200

Any insight would be appreciated.

 

[loup garou]

1) Run memtest86, you may have some bad ram.
2) Try another vid card, just for the install.

 

[boshuter]

I agree with the memtest. If you are running 2 sticks; try loading xp with only one stick. I've had the same problem and it almost always turns out to be ram related.

 

[cheapherk]

Running with one stick. Currently testing with memtest86.

 

[cheapherk]

memtest86 has been running for 51 hours has made 183 passes with no errors. Now what?
I haven't tried the second video card yet.

 

[boshuter]

Have you tried it with the memory in different slots on the mb? Sometimes that helps.

 

[cheapherk]

Ahhh- tried a different video card- still freezes at same spot. I also removed every card except the video card and still- it freezes. I suppose I will try a different DIMM slot on the motherboard. I'll keep you posted.

 

[cheapherk]

Different DIMM slot didn't work. Think I'm going to try a different MB.