Building new computer... numerous problems... first hard drives appear in bios but then when trying to load win xp, it says they arent there... finally started working... then as windows trys to load (before i get to partition screen) random error messages pop up... determined that memory was incompatible (still a weird error as i have built a few computers and never seen that) now i finally have win xp loaded and computer will freeze up after about 5 minutes of use.... sometimes longer, sometimes shorter... and the updates i download wont install... pretty sure the mobo is bad but want any suggestions before i send it back... thanx

Win XP home
AMD Athlon X2 3200
MSI K9N Platinum Mobo
Kingston 1GB 533 Ram
GeForce 7600 GT Vid Card

It definitely sounds like a hardware problem.

Are your sure that the RAM and CPU are compatible with the board?

Are you sure that the RAM and CPU are good?

Are you using SATA drives?

Also the PSU? Is it known to be good?

What were the verbatim errors that you were getting?

Are the fans all working? With the case open do you notice any abnormal heat off the CPU fan or GPU fan or PSU fan?




Also: look in your Event viewer: rt. click My Computer then click Manage then Event Viewer.
Or: Administrative Tools/Event Viewer or Start/Run/ eventvwr
Open the system as well as the application tabs & look for X errors. Click error line for details.
Post back the source & event id & Description especially of errors that seem to coincide with this issue.
Also check the Information lines that might coincide with this issue.

How to view and manage event logs in Event Viewer in Windows XP

The current RAM is compatible. The previous one was not. That solved the problem of the error messages I was receiving.
The CPU is compatible.
Yes I have SATA drives.
The PSU seems to be working fine and had good reviews before I bought it.
I don't remeber all the error messages I got before I changed the memory. Some said "BAD_HEADER_POOL" I think and many were just a number code. Those messages have stopped since the memory change.
Now it's just the computer freezing and not being able to install the Windows updates.
All fans are running and the CPU is staying very cool.
The errors listed in the event viewer are a few of the following: Source- Service Control Manager, Event # - 7000, 7001, or 7026

The Service Control Manager error 7026 suggests things similar to my initial reaction which is the hard drive connection.

http://www.eventid.net/display.asp?e...anager&phase=1

Are your drives setup as a RAID setup? If not is your Operating System drive in the first SATA slot?

If your problems persist I would Format and Clean Install XP again with the one SATA drive on the first SATA slot. Remove the other drive (as well as any IDE hard drives) during installation.

If it is a RAID setup did you load the RAID drivers at the F6 prompt?

I would also verify in your BIOS Setup the hard drive position and detection prior to any new install.


All the above just from my own experience of mixing SATA and IDE/ATA drives as well as not having SATA in the proper port. The symptoms are very similar.

I am not using RAID even though I have 2 hard drives connected. They are connected to the first and second slots of the mobo with Windows in the hard drive on the first slot. Windows was installed on a brand new hard drive, but I will try to do a new install on it and see if that helps.

I disconnected the second hard drive and made sure all the cables were connected on the first one. I checked to make sure I had it plugged in the first slot. The I reformatted and did a clean install. Computer froze again.

I would try the other hard drive and reinstall XP.

If two drives are behaving the same way we can basically remove them as the problem.

Then the motherboard becomes more suspect.

Guys I appreciate the help from all of you. Today when I got home from work I went ahead and shipped the mobo back for a replacement. I hope that is the only problem.

Thanks for the update. Let us know how it goes.

Got my new motherboard in... loaded XP and got same errors... Tried a different hard drive... now it seems to be working fine... checked my warrenty info on maxtor websites.. seems they admit to having compatibility issues with my chipset... its going to be a fun battle trying to get my money back...