Windows XP Crashes at welcome screen on fresh install

[x8x InSaNe x8x]

Here are my specs:

Windows XP pro
Asus A7N266-VM/AA
Viking 512 MB PC-2100
Western Digital 40GB HD
Lite-on 52x CD Burner
Lite-on Dual Layer DVD Burner
Antec True380 P.S.
U.S. Robotics 3090 Internal Modem

I built a Computer for my sister and everything went together
perfectly... I left, and her husband installed a win98 mouse driver
then it crashed, (obviously, but i dont know how he did it to begin
with) i went back over picked it up and monkeyed around with it, slowly
but surely it keeped crashing, earlier and earlier each time. So I
Formatted and Installed XP three times and every time It still Crashed
and rebooted, now at the welcome screen. Safe mode Freezes. Only once
has scandisk ran and it did detect something but i missed what it said,
then it rebooted and still crashed...

Things I've Tried:
Fresh Installs
Changed Power Supplies(w/ a spare i Had)

It's Obviously a hardware issue, I just want a replace-it-list from
most likely to least likely...

Thanks in advance for any input....

 

[Jeff W]

have you tried turning off the BIOS virus protection?

 

[D.Currie]

Here are my specs:

Windows XP pro
Asus A7N266-VM/AA
Viking 512 MB PC-2100
Western Digital 40GB HD
Lite-on 52x CD Burner
Lite-on Dual Layer DVD Burner
Antec True380 P.S.
U.S. Robotics 3090 Internal Modem

I built a Computer for my sister and everything went together
perfectly... I left, and her husband installed a win98 mouse driver
then it crashed, (obviously, but i dont know how he did it to begin
with) i went back over picked it up and monkeyed around with it, slowly
but surely it keeped crashing, earlier and earlier each time. So I
Formatted and Installed XP three times and every time It still Crashed
and rebooted, now at the welcome screen. Safe mode Freezes. Only once
has scandisk ran and it did detect something but i missed what it said,
then it rebooted and still crashed...

Things I've Tried:
Fresh Installs
Changed Power Supplies(w/ a spare i Had)

It's Obviously a hardware issue, I just want a replace-it-list from
most likely to least likely...

Thanks in advance for any input....

If the crashes come faster and up-time is shorter the longer the computer is
on, you've probably got an overheating problem which could be solved as
simply as replacing a fan. Or it could be something about to fail, and as it
gets hotter, it throws out errors.

Check the fans, look for failing capacitors, and check for hot spots.

 

[Box134]

I would suggest trying another stick of memory. I say that because I've been
trying for the last week to upgrade my memory. I had a working stick of 256
MB PC2100 memory and I tried to add to it another stick of 256 MB. When I
installed the new memory I couldn't even get to the sign-on screen before I
had a spontaneous re-boot. And it would happen over and over, until I
removed the new RAM.

So try another stick... it's relatively easy and at least you could rule out
one possibility.