BSOD during XP install, have tried many things! Hardware?

[tranced]

So here's the setup:

P4 2.4 533mhz FSB
1x512mb corsair value select
ASRock P4V88 VIA mobo

i have eliminated HD and CD-ROM drives from the equation because I've tried other HD/CD drives that result in the same errors. i've also tried other ram (transcend, another corsair, nanya) so i guess you can eliminate that as well.

the psu is a seasonic 380watt (which i pulled from another system to make sure it wasnt the psu's fault).


here are the symptoms:
slow hd & cd access/load times (specifically, the system takes a bit longer than normal to go from screens such as the one after you press a key to boot from CD that says "Please wait while setup inspects your computer configuration" and also the screen before you accept the license agreement. in terms of actual HD and CD read/write speeds, those seem to be OK, it feels more like the initial scanning and accessing while in setup.

i get a page fault error during the GUI portion of setup (took a couple tries to just get to the GUI portion!... random BSOD's while file copy took place).

i'm wondering if this could be due to a bad motherboard? i know ASRocks aren't the best, and after inspecting the board, several of the small green capacitors on the board labelled "TAICON 6.3v 1000uF" are slightly bloated. curiously, however, the larger brown caps labelled "KZE 16v 1200uF" located around the CPU socket look fine.

btw before this, the mobo was running off a no name "350 watt" psu that came with the case.

so yea.. bad mobo (and is this due to the bad psu)? i thought page faults were due to bad memory? sorry for the long post

[Tongboy]

looks like you've tried everything else, i'm guessing video is onboard? no other cards installed, etc

i've seen xp installs error out for hte craziest shit but it's always come back to problematic hardware everytime. proc/mobo look to be the only things you haven't swapped out to test, pretty much guarantees one or the other or the combo is the source of the problem...

[CRABstick]

I've heard some funny stuff happening with ASRock boards, but hearsay is hardly conclusive evidence for an RMA... tried another XP disc?

[Wicaeed]

Could be a bad disk (CD-ROM) as well, but it does sound like a bad motherboard. Download and run Memtest86 if you can, its a great utility. While you say you have tried different sticks of RAM, have you tried different RAM slots with only one stick? Try running the test with one stick of RAM in, and move it to different RAM slots after testing is done, and then repeat. If errors come up on only some of the RAM slots while others pass the test fine, then the problem is your motherboard.

[tranced]

i've tried installing windows with all the different memory sticks in different slots at a time, but i get the same BSODs.

the video's an ATi Radeon 9600XT, but I've also tried a known working nVidia 6600GT as well, and same errors.

i guess its the mobo, i'll try memtest but i duno. the buldging caps look like they could be affecting something, im not sure exactly what though.

also i tried another XP disc and it was even slower than the first. i've also tried different CD-ROM drives as well, so its not that.

[Nocturnal]

Check for blown capacitors.

[M|22]

how about giving us the bluescreen error message? sounds like RAM to me

[Syk0tiK]

You know what, i just had similar problems building a new system yesterday. Everything took WAY longer than it should. For instance, it would take almost a whole minute just to detect the hard drives/CD-Roms during POST, and i would also get random BSOD's.

Guess what it was?

The hard drive was the only one in the system on that channel, i had the jumper set to Master just like in every other system i have ever built. Same with the CDRom. I set them both to cable select and now it works great.

This is one stupid little thing that you can also try.

[tranced]

I've gotten several error messages.

The most consistent one is PAGE_FAULT_IN_NON_PAGED_AREA

Also, i've seen STOP errors blaming various files and sometimes no files are listed.

[hhookk]

I just went through the EXACT same you are describing and ,by process of elimination, found that I had a bad memory stick. I think thats what you are looking at, or the memory slot on the board itself.

[tranced]

i ran memtest86 for nearly 4 hours, it was on test 8 like 30% when i got back to it. no errors reported. i tried installing vista to see if maybe it was something incompatible with XP, and i got that same page fault error. i messed with some bios settings (like disabling onboard audio and disabling hyper threading.. manually setting memory latencies, etc..) and instead of a BSOD the computer would reboot. also, once in the BIOS after the reboot, it froze (in the menu). i wish i could say motherboard, but im just not 100% yet.

[Nocturnal]

Have you inspected the motherboard for blown capacitors or even bulging capcitors? I had this computer in my shop and it had the same exact symptoms you're describing. I performed a clean install, ran Memtest, checked the hard drive and finally as I looked into the case, I saw that there was one bulging capacitor and one that was already blown.

[hhookk]

Originally Posted by Nocturnal

Have you inspected the motherboard for blown capacitors or even bulging capcitors? I had this computer in my shop and it had the same exact symptoms you're describing. I performed a clean install, ran Memtest, checked the hard drive and finally as I looked into the case, I saw that there was one bulging capacitor and one that was already blown.

He mentions bulging caps in the original post. Maybe thats it.

[tranced]

i will be buying a used mobo off ebay, we'll see what happens. hopefully thats the culprit.

[Cads]

Originally Posted by tranced

I've gotten several error messages.

The most consistent one is PAGE_FAULT_IN_NON_PAGED_AREA

Also, i've seen STOP errors blaming various files and sometimes no files are listed.

Originally Posted by hhookk

I just went through the EXACT same you are describing and ,by process of elimination, found that I had a bad memory stick. I think thats what you are looking at, or the memory slot on the board itself.

The exact same thing has happened to me in the past and I finally traced it back to a bad memory stick as well.