DCOM/RPC trouble reinstalling XP:MCE

[JoeTLieb]

I'm trying to reinstall XP media center onto an older computer. It is being very erratic. The first time it supposedly installed all the mobo drivers off the manufacturer's cd (gigabyte) but it would not sense my dsl connection. the second time as soon as I started to install I got "The InstallShield Engine (ikernel.exe) could not be launched. The RPC Server is unavailable." I looked up that problem and thought I fixed it by changing the limits under dcomcnfg, but the install utility just kept crashing in the middle of the ethernet drivers. after enabling a bios setting "lan boot rom" that I thought could be the problem, my mouse and keyboard quit working at the windows login screen...but worked fine in dos/bios. so I formatted again, and now when I try to change limits with dcomcnfg it closes the window when i dbl click on "computers".
Extremely frustrated, any help would be greatly appreciated

gigabyte GA-8IPE-1000, P4 2.8, WD2500JS, 1.5gb ram, XP Media Center 2002 edition

[glc]

I would run WD Diagnostics on the hard drive, and also run some ram diagnostics. They are both on the Ultimate Boot CD, or you can download the WD Diags (DOS) from WD and some ram diags from www.memtest.org. They will both be CD .iso files which will create bootable CD's when burned using software capable of burning isos - such as Nero.

[JoeTLieb]

I ran the WD diagnostics, wrote zeros to the drive, and used memtest, everything checks out. reinstalled and I'm still getting the same error when installing drivers. I talked to a friend of mine with more experience troubleshooting and he is 99% sure i have a bad mobo. several times randomly while restarting I received a "your current hardware configuration does not support windows" error, which would not show up the next time I booted. along with the other random issues I've had he seems to believe this is convincing evidence for a bad board. And after the HD and Ram checked out, I'm inclined to believe him. I'm probably just going to buy a micro atx socket 478 board and just turn it into a media pc. Barring anymore input that would advise against it. Thanks for the help.

[glc]

Finding a good Socket 478 board is difficult these days. Which exact 2.8 do you have? There are several versions - 400, 533, or 800 FSB - and Northwood (512k cache) or Prescott (1m cache) cores.

It's possible you have a dirty or defective CD or CD drive.

[JoeTLieb]

it's the 800 fsb and I'm pretty sure it's the northwood core. I looked for 478 boards and found a Biostar P4M900-M4 P4M900 on ebay for 45$ total. Confirmed payment before checking cpu compatibility.......idiot. I'm pretty sure it's not compatible. I'm hoping the seller will refund. Anyway I could eliminate the cd as the cause? I'm going to swap a cd-drive out of this pc to check the drive.

[glc]

Your CPU is supported, but that board takes DDR2 ram, not standard DDR, and it's a piece of crap.

A bit pricey, but a solid board and a reputable vendor:

http://www.hypermicro.com/itemdesc.a...N457BP&eq=&Tp=

[JoeTLieb]

On a side note, It prompts for a sp2 cd at the end of the installation, I just hit cancel because I don't have one. Could that have anything to do with these problems? I figured I could just download it after I got the ethernet working.

If I can't find a cheap reliable replacement, I think I'm just going to upgrade to a LGA775, I started a new thread in Build your own PC, "HTPC / Light Gaming uprade for ~$300?" For another ~$165 bucks I can upgrade a good amount, I think.

[glc]

It's asking you to put CD #1 in the 2 CD set back in.

[JoeTLieb]

I'm an idiot, reinstalled with sp2 off of disc 1 and all the mobo drivers installed without a problem. ran into a problem with ATI's CCC needing .NET framework.....that's kind of dumb, but if i just install the display driver it's fine. Looks like I can put off that upgrade for a while.

thanks a million for your time and help.