XP loads ok BUT

[LJM]

Hi to the Group...I have a 1.4 Athlon CPU with a new Asus A7V133 MB and 256 Megs of Ram, 40 gig WD Hard drive and a Diamond 16 meg video card...bare bones system.

Upon loading XP on the drive using a clean format, and XP CD to format and install...within 2-3 restarts, blue screen indicating unable to write to the registry and shutdown. After two of these the computer gives me a black screen telling me that the System file is corrupt or missing. This system has had the MB replaced by Asus and a new video card installed, new power supply...the hard crive will work on another computer with XP but not this one...any ideas as to what the problem may be?...I have changed out the memory modules 3 times but I suspect that the CPU may be faulty...this computer will function with Win98 but not XP?...

Ideas short of ???

Lonnie, Riverside Calif.

[bobbych]

check the jumper/bios settings relating to memory. i have just had simiarr probs with an asus board, and realised the manual was printed wrong with sdram/ddr settings

[LJM]

Checked the settings and found that they are correct...this board only uses SDRAM not DDR...the voltage setting originally was incorrect but I have changed that out several months ago. It seems that XP must be harder on ram than Win 98 SE?....not sure but the computer is running with SE just fine but load XP and Bam!! Cannot figure it out. I do get an unusual visual pattern on the screen when initial boot up takes place but cannot identify other than that...think I will change out the video card again...any other ideas?

[Mercilon]

It is possible that you HD gets read-errors, do you use a clean flat-cable? XP tries to use UDMA but sometimes this can cause errors.

Also, did your XP setup complete without any errors? If not, sometimes a faulty CD-copy is the source of many problems.

Just some ideas

Good luck

[LJM]

The resolution of this problem turned out to be a bad Hard Drive. IBM was the culprit...although the drive tested out fine with their test program and formatted without a problem, the drive became slower and slower to the point that I changed it out... just to see what would happen.....Immediately the problems went away and XP loads and runs without a error. I guess the lesson learned here is that a drive can test fine, format without a problem and still have internal problems that can give you fits. IBM is replacing the drive but I will stick with WD as I have for years.

Regards to all..

LJM

P.S. Happy Thanksgiving to one and all.....I welcome the indegestion of "GOOD FOOD TOMORROW"!!