Whole new slew of errors!

[dogus1]

Wow, this just keeps getting worse --

I'm hoping those who have been following my descent into computer hell can help, even though I don't think it's an XP issue anymore...

I ran memtest86, and I've had many errors in test 11, which according to the readme is good at finding "data sensitive" errors.

When running windows setup from the boot cd, the computer crashes to a blue screen, citing "IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL." This would seem to me to indiciate a hardware conflict that is causing all of my crashes, not anything in Windows itself -- but I have no idea what this error means... could this be caused by possible bad memory? Or is there something else -- the way I installed the motherboard perhaps?

 

[mjjohn]

My problem (fixed); Xp started acting up - Getting blue screen, system files lost or unreadable. Tried to run the XP fix from the cd. Got all kinds of 'unable to read file' errors. Tried a couple times and got the same thing, but different files each time. Finally gave up and tried installing 2000 on a different partition. It worked. Ran diagnostics and memtest86. I have a stick of 512 PC2100 and a 256 PC2100. The 256 was bad. Removed it and booted with just the 512. Ran the XP fix again and it did fine. XP was back and running. The bad memory was mucking up files during transfer. I found out later that XP is more memory demanding than other versions.

Replace the memory before you go wild and start digging deeper. I bet it will take care of your problems.


Logic goes away if it is not the first or seemingly obvious answer to a problem.