Help!

[Prok]

Well, I have been struggling with my brothers computer for a long time now, and I'm still scratching my head. I'm hoping that someone has seen this before or has an answer...

The system is:
Athlon XP 2100
Abit KD-7 mobo
2 sticks of 256 mb Crucial Micron ram
Currently a Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 80gb 8mb cache. Used to have a Western Digital hd (WD600JB).
Case is an Evermax, I can find out the PSU if needed.

After hd installation the computer works fine. Within a few days though it starts to require running chkdsk/r in order to load windows. It displays error messages of "page fault in a non-paged area" and others that I don't remember but I am sure I will see soon.

Here's what I have done:
The mobo was replaced a year ago (the same model, just a refurb from Abit).

I have tested the RAM using Memtest, everything passes (4 hours of testing).
I have tested PSU voltages using a multimeter - both idle and low, it is fine.
I replaced the IDE cables.
I replaced the WD hard drive many times (maybe 5?), finally I just bought a new one b/c I thought that it was the hard drive.

With the new hard drive it doesn't even give a BSOD, it just gives a black screen right before windows loads and sits there.

Thanks for looking, I'm starting to pull out my hair.

[dicecca112]

well the only other two culprits are the cpu and mobo. I would guess mobo.

[Prok]

Originally, I thought that it was the mobo and replaced it. Nothing changed.

[Nick59007]

maybe something in ur setup is not working well with the rest of the rig.......its a long shot but that could be the problem......u replaced things however u replaced them with the exact thing u had before......think about it what is the chance that its ur mobo being broke....the one u rma'd would have 2 have the same exact problem.......

[Keiron]

Are the hard drive jumpers in the correct setting? Is the CD you're installing windows form scratched? Do you have any other CD drives you can try to install from?
Sometimes if the CD your installing from is scratched, it can install baddly, or the drive can mess it up. Personally my old DVD-ROM drive (Lite-on POS) would screw every XP install I did, but my CD-RW drive would install it perfectly.

[David]

I would strip it down to the bare minmum - mobo, 1 stick RAM, CPU, Vcard, CDROM, HDD and see if it installs OK.

Looks like a weird prob.

[Prok]

Well its time to start swapping parts out one by one and testing with ones that I know are good. Hopefully this will shed some light on it.
Thanks for the help

[Prok]

Well has anyone ever had this happen to them?

Because the comp wouldn't even load into Windows I decided to put the hd in another comp. After doing this I found that the comp wouldn't load windows either. I thought that maybe I had set the jumpers wrong or something so I removed the extra hd altogether. I tried to start up the other comp and it wouldn't load to windows either! A virus?

In any case, at this point I've just formatted the hd (both of them in the end) and I am using only 1 stick of ram. I've only installed motherboard drivers and a video driver. No audio or windows updates yet. It's working so far but it's only been 2 days (The longest it's taken for it to stop working after a fresh install has been 10 days).