HELP!! New build locking up!!

[BobbyD1120]

Hey everyone; as always I thank you in advance for your time and help. I have built a new computer for my parents with the following parts:
* AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Venice 2000MHz HT 512KB L2 Cache Socket 939 Processor - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103535

* ASUS A8N-VM Socket 939 NVIDIA GeForce 6100 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813131571

* (2) G.SKILL 512MB 184-Pin DDR SDRAM Unbuffered DDR 400 (PC 3200) System Memory
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820231078

* Computer Case - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811103004

* 350 Watt PSU
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817103012

* 250 GB Sata HDD
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822144701

* DVD-RW
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16827106023

* DVD rom
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16827131409

This is my second build and I never had ANY problems with my first. Well with this one, everything seemed to go OK while installing XP SP2. When the installation of the OS was finished it seemed to take a long time to just bring up the "profiles" and then quite a while to load the desktop. By quite a while I mean literally at least 70 - 80 seconds. So once I got to the desktop of XP I put in the ASUS CD-rom to start installing some of the drivers like VGA and stuff like that. Well when I tried to open the cd via "my computer" it just hung, quite responding. I went to Task Manager and ended the unresponsive "my computer". Well then my entire desktop went away, all of the icons, start menu and stuff. So I killed explorer and restarted the task. It took over 4 minutes to bring back up my desktop!! I know that this is not normal. I know a 2 GHz is not lighting fast but I know a new load with nothing is faster than that. The same type of things continued after doing a hard boot. Just stopped responding on normal little things. I finally reinstalled XP 2 times and continue to get the same type of problems. The system just hangs, stops responding for no reason!! Any ideas what could be wrong?? I’m thinking the board may be bad but I’m not sure. What can/should I do???

Thanks for your help!!

[kram 2.0]

Reboot, hit DEL to enter BIOS. Does the BIOS recognize your processor as an Athlon 64 3200+ running at 2.0Ghz? In "Hardware Monitor", what temperature are you getting for your processor?

kram

[BobbyD1120]

Kram, thanks for the reply and also for the insight on 64 part of it. As for the BIOS, yes it sees a "AMD Athelon (tm) 64 processor 3200+
Module Version: 14.08
Revision: E6
Cache L1: 128 KB
Cache L2: 512 KB
Speed: 2000 MHz
Current FSB mulitplier: 10x
Max FSB mulitplier: 10x
Count: 1"

As for the temp the CPU is currently 43 deg C and the MB is 33 deg C

Also the system memory says 960 usable. I have 2 512's is this normal?

THANKS!!!!

[Alaron]

Also the system memory says 960 usable. I have 2 512's is this normal?



Yes, your ram gives you 1024MB, but your motherboard is using 64MB for the onboard video. 1024-64=960. So that's normal.

Is your RAM being recognized by the BIOS as PC3200?

[BobbyD1120]

ok,dumb ?; but I dont see where it says what type of RAM it is. Under main/system information is says on the bottom of the page, System memory and usable size is 960 but that is all it says. Does not say the type. Am I looking in the wrong place?

[Staren]

You can't find that information inside Windows. You will have to go into BIOS to see all the details on the RAM.

[BobbyD1120]

I looked in the BIOS, and that is where it was saying System Memory. But didnt say anything about the type. When in the BIOS would it list the memory type?

[glc]

Break out your Ultimate Boot CD and run Memtest86+ on your ram and WD DLG Diags on your hard drive.