Most buggy computer ever! help!

[nasic2k]

Hi Everyone ...I really need help on this one.

I recently purchased a computer from Cyberpower Inc. and I bought everything a complete system would have..except a cd-rom drive and a graphic card and no OS. So the computer came and all Cyberpower did was format the HD. I put in the graphics card that I bought and a DVD-Rom. Here are the complete Specs:

-FIC AD11 DDR 266 FSB AGP motherboard (it also has a VIA chipset on it)
-AMD Athlon 1.4 Ghz 266 Bus speed Processor (Socket A)
-256 MB DDR RAM (1 chip)
-30.1 GB Western Digital 7200 RPM hard drive
-350 Watt Power Supply
-Hercules Kyro II 64 MB AGP graphics card
-Toshiba 16x DVD-ROM
-Mitsumi Floppy drive
-Soundblaster Live Value sound card (PCI)
-Netgear 10 MB Phoneline Network card (PCI)
-US Robotics 56k fax modem (PCI)
-Altec Lansing AC33 speakers with subwoofer
-Viewsonic E75 17-inch Monitor
-Windows 98 (not Second Edition)

When I first booted up the computer with everything essential in it, (sans sound card, network card, and modem) everything seemed to run fine. I set the BIOS and since it was already formatted, I proceeded to install a fresh copy of Windows 98. Windows installed correctly, but when it actually booted into windows the first message I got was, "There was an error accessing the registry, press ok to restart and have windows repair the registry for you." After restarting, it did it again, so I clicked OK to restart once more. Then it booted up fine, but everything...and I do mean EVERYTHING I installed had some sort of error or corruption and I KNOW for sure that my Windows 98 CD and the programs I installed were working. (I have 2 others computers and I tried them all) I then decided to install the motherboard drivers that came with my setup. (The AGP miniport Driver and a VIA 4-in-1 Driver set, restarting between each one.) Everything once again seemed fine and I proceeded to install Half-life and it seemingly was error-free until I played for 2 mins. and it crashed into windows immediately without warning. So I decided to go online and check out the FIC website for help and upon connecting for 2-3 mins. I get the infamous Windows Blue screen of death. It proclaimed that my "VCACHE VXD" or something like that had caused an error and it said it may be able to continue, so I hit a key and windows refused to get back to working order. I've had those problems bombard my usage of my new computer. I've reformatted and tried to put windows 2000 on, but that failed too. I've read on PC guide forums that it could be bad memory? or a bad HD. Is this true? I really need this computer and I really hope its not my computer at all and just some IRQ conflict or driver problem. Please Help me, I don't know what to do! Thanks for your time...

[Arrow]

I would most definitely try first to reinstall win98. When you say that w2k did not install properly, what you mean actually?
You also can try switching your cards (video, sound, NIC, modem) on different PCI slots, witch should give them different IRQ-s.
Memory can be and a faulty memory could cause a random corruption in your registry. If you can find another module and try switching it and check whether that would give you better results.
Good luck!

[mjc]

I would simply try reseating the memory first, and checking all the internal connections (reseat them actually), something may have come loose during shipping. Then I would proceed with a wipe and reinstall of windows, making sure that you have updated/current drivers for all of your devices.

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mjc
Links list:Computer Links (http://www.fortunecity.com/skyscraper/highrise/11/index.htm)

Celts are the men that heaven made mad, For all their battles are merry and their songs are all sad.

Gun Control...hitting what you aim at!

[ranchdog]

Little late here but.... SB Live has caused a Ton of grief. Especially so if it is configured to share an IRQ whith another device. Shutting down and moving PCI cards to different slots and re-booting should cause Windoz to re-assign an IRQ or two. Luck.

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......Indecision may or may not be my problem......

[hack_666]

Hey, my friend had a problem with that. It was a bad CD-ROM drive. Everything seemed to copy fine, but it was actually currupting bytes of data in files when it was copying data from CD's. Your Windows Installation sounds like something that happened to him, along with the installation of all his hardware, it screwed up all the drivers and everything. Try installing everything again with another CD-ROM drive, it's time-consuming, but if it all works then you've found the culprit.

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"If I knew what the problem was, it wouldn't be a problem anymore!"

[ziba-june]

If none of the above remedies had worked for you, check the CPU fan. Maybe your CPU is getting too hot.