Hey Guys! Just thought I'd share the tale of my last build. I've built probably 10 systems from scratch in the last three years (3 for myself, 7 for friends), so I'm not completely new at this. Of those builds, only two have had problems; the last two that were for me! Two years ago I had a MSI 645 that had an intermittent problem that took several weeks to root out before I found it and switched to a P4B266. I like Asus. Just last Thurs, I ordered a P4 2.8/800, a P4P800 Deluxe, and 1024MB of Corsair Twinx 3200LLPT from newegg. Great online store, received everying the next day and for very good prices.The trouble I had was with the memory. The machine went together just fine in the old case. I even upgraded my old 330W PS just to make sure I'd have enough juice. After assembly, it quick POST'd ok (default setting) and I started loading Win 2k (it's a dual-boot machine). The o/s loader kept having problems reading a file. So since I was using a burned copy of 2000 with SP4 already merged I tried the straight Win2k CD from MS. Same problem. Weird thing was that it hung on different files each time. Same problem happened with two copies of XP and even 98. So then I started eliminating problems. Thought it might be the CD drive. Nope. Then I switched the hard drive from the RAID port to an IDE port. Nope. Then I tried a different hard drive. Nope. Then BIOS settings. Nope. Then memory. Yep. Switched POST to full mode and it would only get thru +/- 280Mb before it hit an error. Tried some old PC 2100 and it loaded fine. Ran Memtest_86 and found over 5000 errors in the Twinx 3200LL. So those are going back to newegg for a refund and now I'm running two sticks of Kingston 3200/3-3-3 512k. Everthing works great and it's stablile at 230FSB / 3.2G. Kinston worked great before and is available local; should have stuck with a known good brand.The thing that kinda ticks me off is that I went out of my way to buy the best ram I could find this time (or at least thought I did) which was the "matched pair" of Corsair. These things aren't cheap at $285 for 1024 Mb (two "LL" 512k matched sticks). They even claim that both sticks are tested as a pair in a dual-channel board to ensure compatibility. I don't see how that is the case since it was DOA for me.Then with that solved, I installed Win 2k without issue, but couldn't get XP to install. It loaded, but then after reboot it was blank. Turns out (after three re-loads!) that it wouldn't find a driver for the 9800 so it switched the primary driver to a PCI Rage 128 that I have for a thrid monitor. No monitor was connected to that card at my test bench, ergo blank screen on the 9800 port. Found it out by starting XP in safe mode and then installing the 9800 Pro driver.Argh! At least all is working now. Very nice machine and I don't see how I every flew without the CH yoke. Now to get some pedals...

Glad you finally got it working! I know how frustrating it can be when, after buying more expensive A-brand parts, things still won't work. The Asus p4p800 is a bit fussy about which memory to use. The Corsair memory isn't bad, it's just not very compatible. The newer (and more expensive) P4c800-E has a better memory support.I still remember how three years ago, I tried for months to get my SB-live to work with my Via Chipset. The frustrating part was that after trying to get the system stable for weeks, I found out that there was a design flaw in both the Soundblaster Live and the Via chipset which caused them not to work properly together. There were some workarounds, but I never felt very happy about that system.I'm going to build a new system in a few weeks, but I'm a bit worried that it may be the same again. One thing I learned is to build your system as basic as possible, and install your OS right after that. Then, add the remaining hardware one piece at a time and check it is working correctly before you put in the next.

I used to do the one-part-at-a-time routine, but XP seems to handle everything just fine. If it detects a known component and it has the drivers then it loads it, if not it leaves it for you to install.On my system, it left the USB Hub, 9800 Pro, Via RAID, Audigy, and 3Com LAN uninstalled. Once I figured out the memory problem, all installed very easily with the driver disks and/or downloaded drivers.