[Cassidy]

I bought a PC from an eBay vendor with no OS. I installed what I suspect was an illegal copy of XP that I bought locally.

Basic specs of the machine was:

ASROCK SKT-775 CONROE1333-D667
CoreDuo 2.8ghz
2gb PNY 667 DDR2 RAM
A cheap 128mb g-card

With a couple of new bits put in, it all worked really well for a few months, and could handle anything audio-processing-wise I threw at it. Then one day it would take forever to load XP properly. Only the wallpaper would load - no taskbar or desktop icons. If left for a minute or two, everything would load up and seemed ok. But when I started up Cubase and did any work, the sound would be terrible, and a quick look at Task Manager showed the processor going nuts. A restart would usually fix this, but that was an annoying work-around.
A few days later, I'd start getting Delayed Write Failure balloons and alert boxes, leading to BSOD. Finally, it wouldn't get past the POST screen.

After reading a little online and the Microsoft site, I bought a new hard disk and 100% legit copy of XP for peace of mind, but it did the same behaviour straight away. I tried installing XP again, but it then wouldn't even get through the installation without BSOD.

I took it to a local store for diagnosis and was told one RAM card was duff and causing the problem, so I replaced it (with a 2gb one, woo!). So I installed XP again, and it worked fine for a day at most, then almost the exact same behaviour started. XP loads up, and this time the desktop and taskbar loads. But it then freezes and I get the BSOD. I get an error code of 0x000000F4.

Would anyone have any idea what's causing this? I now use a Vista machine and it seems to be doing all I want it to, so I'm not in a huge hurry. But the XP machine is only 6 months old, and I'd like to at least have it working so I could keep one just for gaming/websurfing and one for DAW apps.

[c0ldfyr3]

is the heat sink making good contact with the CPU, and you said there was "one" faulty RAM chip... if there is more then just one RAM chip, are both of the Sticks matching, or even compatible sticks.

It sounds like your CPU is either severely over heating, or faulty.

[Cassidy]

Well, when I got it back, the 'faulty' RAM card was pulled out. It had been part of a matching pair of Elixir 1gb cards. I left the working one in and added a compatible 2gb PNY card. I've since pulled the other Elixir 1gb card so it was most recently operating (or trying to) with only the PNY card in one slot.

The heatsink seems to be sat on pretty well. The machine hadn't been moved or taken any knocks inbetween working well not working, so it wouldn't have been dislodged. It wasn't used any more heavily, either.

[imnuts]

Check to make sure that all the cables are plugged in securely. Could be that something got dislodged slightly that would cause your problems.

[yeshuas]

Something simple to try is the cables to the drive. I had a computer doing similar things and changed the ribbon cables and now it runs like a new computer.

[JabbaPapa]

Something simple to try is the cables to the drive. I had a computer doing similar things and changed the ribbon cables and now it runs like a new computer.

I must concur that it sounds like I/O failure of some sort.

Bad ribbons is often the culprit in these cases

After you replace the ribbons, clean installing XP (again !) may be a good idea, as the faulty I/O may have corrupted the existing setup.

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HOWEVER, it is also possible that the two RAM sticks are not fully inter-compatible -- in which case you should remove, not replace the 1 GB stick. If you wanted to replace the 1 GB stick with another 2 GB (so as not to lose the dual DDR), then either the motherboard drivers will be happy with this BUT will only provide 3 GB not 4 in your XP ; or they won't be, and you would need to use a 64-bit Windows version (most likely Vista) instead of your current XP --- hmmmmm would that justify the cost ? :-/

Luckily it is free to test if it's RAM incompatibility -- just switch off and unplug the machine, remove the 1 GB stick, then reboot. If problems still occur, then it's most likely I/O failures as above, and quite likely bad ribbons.

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I am seriously hoping that there is nothing in your computer or electrical setup which is burning your RAM sticks, which would unfortunately be another possibility. I have seen cases where a bad plug or bad wiring in a home can break a PC. If it's some kind of fault on the motherboard, then the computer is just dead and would need replacing (replacing the motherboard might or might not be a possibility).

If new I/O ribbons and switching to just the new RAM don't solve the problem, and you are sure of your electricals, then possibly the computer is just bust.

[Cassidy]

I've gone some way to testing the RAM as you say, JP, in the 'free way', as I doubted the competency of the store techs when I collected it. I bought a 2gb stick so I could pull both 1gb sticks from the machine to see eliminate them from the pool, the machine did the same behaviour. I've also tested the 1gb stick in another machine and it worked. The 2gb stick is now in my Vista machine (giving me 4gb, which is pretty cool for me) and is working with no problems.

Being that it doesn't seem to be the RAM, the next thing to do will be to test the cables to the primary drive as imnuts, yeshaus and you suggest. Failing this, it may be the motherboard, as you say (I'm getting to the point where I've replaced everything else hehe).
I have some cables, so I can test that out easily. If it's not that, I think I'll simply cannibalise the machine as best as possible (even the case is quite nice) and cut my losses with it.

[JabbaPapa]

I have some cables, so I can test that out easily. If it's not that, I think I'll simply cannibalise the machine as best as possible (even the case is quite nice) and cut my losses with it.

Make sure these are relatively new cables BTW