A7M266 with 1.33GHz Athlon???

DrMDJ, yeah I have. I was just clarifying a bit of the logic behind my troubleshooting. All DocMemory tests passed. All of the other diagnostic programs indicated no memory problems. I couldn't get the Lucifer program to unzip and run.

I have replaced the processor, did a low level format with maxblast twice, reloaded windows and I am still having the same problems. I have ran simmtester--no problems found. I have ran the microsoft memtester 44 loops in the basic test, 9 times with extended testing, no problems found. BurnIn Test has found no problems. No problems found anywhere with any of the diagnostic software I have ran as detailed previously. What gives, I am at my wit's end with this problem, and am running out of ideas.

Here is a partial log of the errors I have gotten.

01/05, 1:05am. running IE, firefox: an exception OE has ocured at 0028:C1BEF294 in VxD HCFV42. This is called from 0028:C1AB6CB0 in VxD HCFKMOS [which is a modem driver] 1:31am, 01/05, running 3 firefox windows: RNAAPP has performed an illegal operation. 1:32am, when closing error dialog, Explorer has performed an illegal operation. 1:34am, reestablishing connection: firefox has performed an illegal operation, unable to re-establish connection w/o rebooting, system had shut down immediately w/ no errors or hangs. during reboot, does not detect primary master, which has been happening frequently. [all jumper and drive settings are correct.] reset. primary master detected. 2:17am. firefox illegal op error, 3 windows open.

01/07, 1:08am. an exception OE has occured at 0028:EF059125 in VxD ---. This was called from 0028:C1B01EDO in VxD ---. 1:09am. A fatal exception error has occured at 0177:BFF72830, the current application will be terminated. hang on shutdown during restart. reset, then shutdown. no problems found by scandisk. 1:16am. system crash. [ctrl alt delete] scandisk finds no problems. 7:35pm. reflashed BIOS w/ ver 1.007, thinking maybe BIOS is corrupted. successful, verified correct settings. used paint, wordpad, firefox, no errors as of 8:44pm.

01/09, 3:52pm. loaded system down, fatal exception OE has occured at 0177:BFF850C6. resources--system 19%, user 19%, gdi 26%. closed all running apps. resources--system--57%, user 57%, gdi 68% [should be more free resources w/ no running apps and 512MB RAM. 4:57pm an exception OE has occured at 0028:C1AE93EF in VxD HCFKMOS. this was called from 0028:C1AE9D70 in VxD HCFKMOS. This Program is not responding dialog, w/ no program specified. end task. rnaapp has performed an illegal operation.

01/11, 1:58am. Firefos caused an invalid page fault in module JS3250.dll at 0177:6007E508 2:16am. an exception OE has occured at 0028:7A7A8F60 in VxD---. this was called from 0028:C1AFEA00 in VxD HCFKMOS.

Wow, what a crazy ride it has been, not to mention frustrating. Got new motherboard, installed it. DOA. RMA'ed it, got replacement cross shipped, almost 2 weeks downtime. Installed it, installed Windows and some software, running in VGA mode. No problems, life is peachy. Installed video card drivers and software for an Asus V9400-X/TD 8x AGP with 128 MB DDR and is based on an Nvidia GeGorce MX4000 GPU. Suddenly life is not so good. Very difficult to boot, strange behavior. Could not uninstall drivers and revert to VGA mode, uninstall routine indicates software is not installed. OK, fine, buggy install CD. Go to Nvidia website, download and install version 66.94 drivers, so that I at least have a way to uninstall without hacking the registry and system files. Same problem. Difficult to boot, though it passes POST, and as before, if it boots at all, monitor just turns off, though system does not shut down. Reboot in safe mode, uninstall drivers, reboot, system works fine again in VGA mode, albeit in 16 color mode 640 x 480 resolution, not gona get it. Then I find this "arcane" but useful info buried in the readme file: 1. ASUS display cards consume more electrical power so that your motherboard must be able to provide enough electrical current in 3.3V power to maintain its normal operation.
2. ASUS display cards are recommended to use with Intel 440BX chipset for best compatibility. Now there's useful info, and nary an indication of this on the Nvidia or Asus website that I've been able to find, imagine that. So much for the logic of getting an Asus video card because I'm getting an Asus motherboard, to ensure compatibility. So, to avoid another week of downtime, I go to CompUSA and spend $80+ for a PNY card based on an Nvidia FX 5200 GPU that I could have got for probably half that online. So the question becomes what was Asus thinking by putting a graphics processing unit designed for 3.3 volt operation on a card (AGP 8X) for which the voltage spec is 1.5 volts, since 3.3 volts is the spec for older 1x and 2x/4x AGP standards. Oh, wait, like they care, let the beta testers, uh sorry, customers figure it out. So a few motherboards will likely get fried, not our problem. Fortunately, mine didn't, though I did get quite a scare when one of the 3 listings in device manager for motherboard resources indicated a !, which was resolved by uninstalling, rebooting, and letting windows reinstall the driver. I still have a lot of software to reinstall, including Windows XP.