bsod on chipset drivers

hi i got an open box asus pundit-p1 (AH1) bare bones kit and i had to download the drivers from asus.com after many frustrated attempts at trying to find the south bridge chipset drivers i installed them. during mid installation right after hardware manager pops the little bubble up that tells you that new hard ware has been found (saying they found an Ethernet controller). then the computer bsods and when i try to restart it loads windows displaying the windows logo and then bsods again. ive tried this three times reinstalling xp each time and still get the same results. my question is do i have faulty drivers do i need to do a bios update? or is my mobo F'ed.

 

What details does the BSOD give you? A little more info would be helpful.

 

well idk right now. it doesnt bsod during startup anymore it just gives me a black screen but ill reinstall xp and give you the hex and the description as well when i get it

 

It could be faulty RAM. As stated above, more details would be helpful. If you could post the BSOD error numbers (they look like 0x0000007F) and any file names that are mentioned in the errors, we may be able to help pinpoint and correct the problem.

 

ok the error code is
0x0000007e (0xc0000005,0xb6c01976,0xf7920c70)

and then the file name is
nvnrm.sys
then it says
address b6c01976 base at b6bf5000 date stamp 42eac584

 

When I first read your post I thought it was a bad ethernet port/driver or bad RAM. It turns out that it's the ethernet driver. NVidia released a bad set of ethernet drivers that cause the crashes you described. You have two options: disable the on board ethernet in the BIOS and install a PCI ethernet card (they're only about $15), or try a different nVidia ethernet driver. Because nVidia bundles the ethernet drivers in with the chipset drivers, you have to use a whole different set of chipset drivers. Since you have already tried the drivers from Asus, you need to track down some older drivers (or different) drivers. Try these (no guarantees though)
http://drivers.softpedia.com/get/MOTHERBOARD/Others/Nvidia-nForce4-686.shtml
http://www.nvidia.com/object/nforce_nf4_winxp32_8.26_11.09.html
http://www.majorgeeks.com/nVidia_nForce4_AMD_Edition_d4687.html
http://www.majorgeeks.com/Nvidia_nForce4_Driver_32-Bit_d4489.html
You'll probably have to boot in safe mode to remove the faulty drivers first...
Good luck!