The Mother Board

[Falklian]

I just purchased a new mobo, processor and RAM the other day. Had to reformat the HDD because XP freaked, installed Red Hat Linux 8 to mess around with, don't really know much about Linux, but when ever there is some reason I absolutely have to reformat my HDD, I install a Linux OS to mess aoround with and try to learn more about. Anyways, after several hours of playing with Red Hat (going to install it on an older machine, I actually liked it and found it easy to use compared to the other ones I tried) I reformatted and installed XP. Installed Home first and it installed fine, but after getting into the OS, it would crash anywhere from immediately to about an hour after use. After getting back into Windows it would ask me if I'd like to send the error report, I'd send it, then a browser window would come up giving me info. The problem is a device driver conflict. I updated drivers to everything I could think of, same problem. I reformatted again, this time installing XP Pro. During installation it crashed, giving me XP's equivilant to the blue screen of death, saying there was a device conflict and that installation was halted so as to not damage my computer further. I rebooted and continued installation with no problems. After getting into the OS, same random crashing problem. I updated drivers and installed service pack 1, same random crashing. I want to rule out my devices going bad and even a bad mobo because when I had Linux installed, I had no problems at all and Linux recognized all my devices and installed all the proper drivers for everything. I also ran it for several hours with no issues at all. I'm thinking it might be a problem with my sound card though. I have onboard sound as well, it's disabled in the bios and I haven't installed the drivers for it, but it could be a possibility. My old mobo had onboard sound and I had no issues with that at all after I disabled it and installed a PCI sound card. Anyone have any suggestion on what to try or what it could possibly be? I am going to try uninstalling the PCI sound card and using the onboard to see if that solves any problems in a little while. Thanks for any help or suggestions in advance.

CPU = Intel Celeron 1.7 ghz
MOTHERBOARD = Gigabyte GA-8SR533P
RAM = 512 DDR 2100
HEATSINK = Came with processor, Intel HS/F at ~40*C
OS = XP Pro
POWER SUPPLY = Enermax 350W
VIDEO CARD = Xtasy GeForce 4 MX 420
SOUND CARD = SB Audigy Gamer (AC'97 onboard, disabled in BIOS)
CASE = Enermax (not sure on model number)

Edit: Looked at the event viewer, had this error that happened about 2 or so hours ago - A condition has occurred that indicates this COM+ application is in an unstable state or is not functioning correctly. Assertion Failure: *ppv == 0

Process Name: svchost.exe
The serious nature of this error has caused the process to terminate.
COM+ Services Internals Information:
File: d:\nt\public\sdk\inc\atl30\atlcom.h, Line: 1826
Comsvcs.dll file version: ENU 2001.12.4414.46 shp

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

Thinking this might possibly have something to do with whatever device is causing the crashes.

[len444]

[Falklian]

I reformatted using a DOS tech disk that a friend made in his Hardware/OS class, it's what I usually use, has fdisk on it... I know that the Red Hat disks have fdisk on them (or on one of them at least) Should I have used that instead of the one on the DOS boot disk? Never had problems like that before, but I wouldn't rule it out as a possibility.

[Falklian]

Pulled out the sound card after I got a blue screen of death =\ Will know in a bit if it was the card, onboard is ok, but nicer features on SB Audigy =\

[len444]

dos fdisk won't remove linux. need to us the fdisk in linux. give it a try (can't hurt). be certain to write the changes to disk before exiting.

[Falklian]

Definately will reformat then, and I think that it might be exactly that problem, ran DOS fdisk a moment ago, have a 60 gig HDD and when I took a look at the partitions, there was a 7 mb unrecognized partition sitting there.

[len444]

ran into the same problem!

i use disk druid for visual, then back up and go into fdisk and select correct hdd (if more than one), and list partition info, then delete all the partition from the highest # to the lowest (some might say empty type- just continue to the next one), then select w to write the info to the disk, then do ctrl+alt+del to reboot, and you should be good to go.

[Falklian]

Well... I used Linux FDisk and reinstalled XP Pro... still had the same problem. So I said screw it and reinstalled Home instead... same problem. Fixed the MBR and boot sector, same problem. It has to be some device on my computer that XP doesn't like and that Linux has no problem with. I've already ruled out the soundcard, It might be the graphic's card, but I don't have another one to test the problem out with, dunno if it's the modem, never use it... The only thing I can think of is maybe my NIC, it's USB (LinkSys Compact USB 100m) and the only reason for that is my old mobo was a micro-atx and I had no spot for a PCI NIC. A friend has the same mobo as I do, has no problems and is running XP Pro... I'm about to just install Linux, run that for a while, see if I have any problems, if I don't, then I guess I yank my PCI NIC out of my little brother's computer, he has no need for it anyway. If I still have issues then I guess I return the mobo to the place I got it, if I can do that, or would I have to return it to the manufacturer? I am so frustrated right now and I have no idea what to do =\

Edit: Whatever device it is, XP AND the mobo seem to not like it, all the hardware worked on my old computer which was basically an HP that had it's hardware upgraded and had XP installed.

[Hog]

I would check into the graphics card. I had some major issues trying to install XP on my mobo with a Radeon VE card. Windows 2000 installed fine with no incident, but the driver that shipped with XP for my card blew the install up all the time. Luckily it installed far enough that when it froze up I could reboot into Safe Mode. From there I deleted the display driver and rebooted - it then booted into Normal Mode fine and I managed to install updated display drivers. Now it runs fine. I don't know if you can get into Safe Mode, but if you can, try deleting the display driver and reboot.

Hog.

[Falklian]

Ok, I think I *kinda* know what it is... I don't know the exact wording of the error, but I remember how it starts off, I get a "blue screen of death" XP style and it says "IRQL_NOT_LESS_THAN" Or something to the effect of that, but definately starts off with "IRQL" Also, after getting frustrated, I tried to reinstall Linux, crashed during install with only a message of "Unknown Error" then went into unloading a bunch of stuff, then rebooted my machine. Also, I pulled out just about every cord and card (USB 2.0, NIC, modem, soundcard) but left my Graphics card in (GeForce 4 MX 420 PCI, the reason for the PCI is that I didn't have an AGP slot in my old computer and I have to wait for the funds to upgrade to an AGP card) With everything pulled out and unplugged, I reinstalled Windows XP Home with no problems, booted up my computer, everything seemed to work ok, goofed around a little, changed taskbar options, background, then crash, reboot. I'm *thinking* the reason for the reboots is IRQ conflicts but I don't know how to check to see what is conflicting with what. I've gone into the System Information program in XP (Start > Programs > Accesories > System Tools > System Information) and checked what it said about IRQ info, everything it reported was OK. I went into my BIOS and screwed around with the IRQ settings there, changed some from "Auto" to one of the IRQ settings it listed and I changed some to "Auto" Right now I am using the machine that I have been having problems with... so far I haven't had a problem, but it has gone a long time without rebooting on me while trying to figure out what was going wrong, ran it for almost 12 hours before it rebooted on me the other day. RIght now I'm dreading when it will reboot on me... Hopefully it won't and my problems are solved *crosses fingers*