New Setup Problem

[mickh]

I have put together a new pc comprising the following:
Motherboard - Abit KN9 Sli
Processor - AMD 64 3800+
HDD - Maxxstor SATA 160Gb
Graphics - Nvidia Geforce 7600 GS
Memory - 2Gb DDR2 667
I have tried to install XP Pro and can only get past the initial file loading stage. The pc then either restarts over and over or I get "Page Fault in Non Page Area"
or "IRQL Less than or not equal" or just an error message telling me the pc has shut down. I've reset CMOS and tried a different motherboard but with no success. I've gone back to the start and re-formatted several times but again,
with no success.
Any ideas what I do next?

 

[Apokalipse]

What's the condition of your XP disc? is it scratched or anything?

 

[mickh]

It is a couple of years old but I tried another one from a friend and this did exactly the same thing.

 

[saltynay]

do a memtest

 

[S0ULphIRE]

Make sure all the connections are contacting correctly. Especially the hdd cable.

 

[superdave1984]

Did you install the SATA drivers?

 

[mickh]

Re - the last 2 replies.....what is, and how do I do, a memtest?
How do I install SATA drivers? The drive came with nothing else?

 

[b1gapl]

Memtest test the stability of your RAM. Download memtest and burn it on to a cd. Than put it in your CD-drive, and when you boot up go into BIOS, and set the CD-drive as the first boot priority. Boot up again, and just follow the instructions to run it. Tell us the results after. I'm not sure how long to leave it running, but the longer the better.

More info on memtest:
Memtest86.com - Memory Diagnostic

 

[mickh]

I have run memtest now. I ran it twice for an hour each time. 1 stick of RAM wouldn't test and wouldn't even boot the pc. The other came back with no errors. Neither stick is well known branded RAM - one is AE (the one that failed) and the other doesn't have a brand on it.
Does there need to be 2 sticks of RAM in there or not?
The actual results read:
Walltime 59 mins
cached 1024m
rsvdmem 84m
memmap e820-std
cache on
ECC off
Test std
pass 0
errors 0
ECC errors 0
plus
L1 cache 128k 16292mb/s
L2 cache 512k 3906 mb/s
memory 1024m 1562 mb/s

Tried to install again but got "IRQL not lees or equal" error.
Looking on some other forums several suggested conflicts with IRQ - which means nothing to me - at the start of the boot there is a list which reads -
Memory controller - NA
SM bus cont - 5
USB 1.0/1.1 OHCI cont - 10
USB 2.0 EHCI cont - 11
IDE cont - 14
IDE cont - 10
IDE cont - 11
IDE cont - 5
Multimedia device - 10
nVidia ethernet bridge - 11
nVidia ethernet bridge - 5
IEEE 1394 open HCI cont - 5
display cont - 11
ACPI cont - 9

Although these are meaningless to me, there seem to be the same numbers for different devices in this list - does this matter? and how do I change them if it does?

 

[mickh]

Does anyone know whether I need SATA drivers - there is another recent post that would suggest I maybe do?