Bad Motherboard or Network Card?!?

[MatCreator]

AMD Sempron 2400
ASRock K7S41GX Motherboard
2 1024 Memory Sticks
80GB HDD
Belkin Wireless G pci network card

This is what my system had before... Didnt have any problems whatsoever until my motherboard died. I replaced it w/ the ASRock K7VM3 motherboard (socket a motherboards are hard to find?!?), and ever since I cant get it work with the wireless card. I tried BOTH slots, no luck. System WILL FREEZE. If I disable the card in safe mode, the system will run fine, no problems...

Im not that good w/ "innards" :P so this is a very delicate situation for me... The repair install went fine, no problems, and I dont know much about bios stuff or settings of that nature, so I set my system to run at the default bios settings. The drivers are all installed and it is using the most recent bios update. I even uninstalled and resintalled the drivers and software, still, the system WILL FREEZE.

The card works (its set up in another system as we speak), and I really wouldnt know what else to do. Motherboard and network card sites say NOTHING of this or similar issues, so I am all out of ideas...

Any help, would be immensly appreciated :)

[ski]

If you did not reformat the HD and reinstall the O/S when the new MB was installed, then recommend that you do so.
If you did that, then also make sure that the MB's chipset drivers are installed.
If that's ok, then see if another component works in the PCI slots.

[MatCreator]

well, when i added the new motherboard, i did do the windows repair... when that completed, i ran all the drivers that it came w/ (are chipset drivers different from the other drivers??) along w/ all the drivers and software for the wireless card.

when i have it in/connected to the system, the card registers w/ the hardware manager. if i move fast enough, i can even connect to the internet, before it freezes, not that i think making the connection is what causes the freeze in the 1st place.... the system will also run fine if i disable the wireless card. uninstalled and reinstalled all the "stuff" over a dozen times, but nothing stops it from freezing.

i honestly dont have any other hardware just laying around for me to test my motherboard, but the same card is running as we speak in another system

[ski]

Missed the repair install comment in your 1st post.
The drivers that come with a MB normally include the chipset drivers.

Start in Safe mode, remove all network cards from Device Manager, uninstall all network card software, restart normally, let Windows recognize the network card, and reinstall its drivers.
If still no luck, then see if you can borrow a PCI card from someone to test the new MB's PCI slots.

[MatCreator]

I tried what you said, before even posting here, i also tried doing it in BOTH slots... I can see 1 slot not working, but not both... i seriously doubt if its the slots, thats just my take... the card was recognized, and worked, just that it will sure as rain freeze my system. sometimes, it wont even finish loading windows, and will freeze before i can even get to the welcome screen. this happened during the repair a few times as well, which makes it impossible to complete that primary step.

[mjc]

Sorry, but often times a 'repair' install is just not enough.

The general rule of thumb is replace the motherboard; replace the OS.

At this point, without a clean install, it is hard to say whether it is the motherboard or Windows screwing up. You can try grabbing one of the Linux Live CDs and try booting to that, with the network card installed, of course. I'd say try Knoppix (www.knoppix.org/), it has pretty good hardware detection and should at least find the card...

[MatCreator]

I cant do a clean install, I have no system or way to back up my hdd, so That is NOT an option at this point... Not something a guy like me can look forward to, I have tons of software and files, that would need reinstalling if I did opt for a clean wipe...

Also, the motherboard doesnt have problems detecting the wireless pci card, it just freezes the system. I can disable it, and the system runs fine... I cant tell if its a wireless pci card issue or my motherboard...

Contacted Belkin, they said contact ASRock. Contacted ASRock, they said contact Belkin...

Oh well :P

[mjc]

There are often too many little things that don't get fixed when doing a repair install, after swapping motherboards that end up creating odd-ball problems. That is if it actually will get that far...

XP is a complicated beast, that is designed NOT to be easily transferred to new hardware.