XP Crashing during "Registering Components" phase

[madhd57]

Help !!!

First post (virgin newbee)

Here's my system that I built in Nov 2003 . . . has been running great up until about a month ago when it started periodically rebooting.

Intel P4 3.2
Asus P4C800-E Deluxe
Corsair 2 x 512 Mb CMX512-4000 Pro 500 Mhz (matched)
ATI Radeon 9800 XT
Creative Soundblaster Audigy 2 ZS Platinum
Western Digital Raptor 2 x 36 GB running Promise Raid 0+2 Stripe Array
Seagate External 160 GB
Plextor PX-708A DVD/CD
PC Power & Cooling Turbo Cool 510
Cooler Master Vortex CPU Fan


I've reformatted the hard drives and started over using all the original settings (including reflashing the bios to the original Nov 2003 version). Windows XP 1a always looks like it's going to build cleanly unitl it gets to "Registering Components". Then I get the famed "Blue Screen of Death" with IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL message . . .

*** stop: 0x0000000A (0x8BFFFFFF, 0x00000002, 0x00000001, 0x8068B90E)

(By the way . . . these stops always change)

Beginning dump of physical memory
Physical memory dump complete

I've tried using two different Windows XP disks . . .both with the same result.

Where do I go from here? Is there any diagnostic software that can load and run entirely in DOS? Does anyone know what XP is doing during this phase?

Anybody's help would greatly be appreciated. Thanks.

[rjfvillarosa]

That Seagate external hard drive, is it plugged in during the installation proccess? if so unplug it along with anything else that is plugged in externally, the only things you want plugged in during an install is the monitor, mouse and keyboard.
Try downloading the diagnostic utility from Western Digital, just download it and unpackage it to a floppy then start the trouble some machine with the floppy in the drive, do the same with memtest86.
You can get memtest86 here http://www.memtest.org/ scroll down the page and download the floppy version.

[tireman]

Also, is the system overclocked? If so, might want to back it down to stock till you get everything reloaded.

[madhd57]

Right now, I've removed everything but mouse, keyboard, video, and the twin WD hard drives. I've even tried using each memory module separately . . . same results. I'm using default settings on the Bios, so I'm not overclocking. I'll go get that utility from WD and give it a try & report back. Thanks.

Gary

[madhd57]

I've download several dos utilities . . .
1) memtest86+ ... 3 full passes of mem tests without any errors
2) Western Digital Diagnostics dos utility ... both quick & full scans on both hard drives without errors
3) ATI dos utility . . . haven't run yet.

I'm assuming ASUS has a similar diagnostic utility. If so, I'll download and run.

Any other ideas, let me know. Thanks.