nothing is working

recently i have purchased parts for a new computer

they include:
ASUS A8N-SLI motherboard
ASUS N6600 video card
AMD Athalon 64 3200
Mushkin 1GIG (2x 512) 3200DDR
Western Digital WD 1200BB-00CAA1 (old hd, the one with the OS)
Western Digital WD 2500JB-00GVC0

after installation of hardware and os i hgave been getting errors. first everytime i try to upgrade to windows sp2 it says failed, i cannot download most programs because i get errors with the downloaded files. For example adobe acrobat reader gives me the error Checksum error. File is corrupted. I heard this was due to bad wrirting to the HD but before the upgrade it was working fine. Also AOL Instant Messanger keeps shutting down after a whle in use, as well as sometimes the entire PC shuts off. Any ideas of what this could be.

Thank you

 

Did you do a fresh install of WinXP on the old drive? If not, I would reformat and reinstall a fresh xp on the drive. What computer did you have the old drive in before and was it using that same xp installation?

 

i did a quick format with a fresh install when i did the upgrade...before it was running on a 1.3ghz amd

 

Just guessing now but I would check the cpu temp with the Asus utility or look in the bios to see what it is.
You really just need to verify that it isn't too hot and causing the computer to shutdown.

Also, I would try one stick of ram at a time to see if one might be defective.

You could try loading the os on the new drive to check the old drive and see if that was the problem.

You might try slipstreaming the sp2 into the XP install and see if that works. Check this link:
http://www.helpwithwindows.com/WindowsXP/winxp-sp2-bootcd.html

You are probably a lot sharper than me but do you have the extra cpu 12volt plug attached to the motherboard? It would be easy to overlook.

On my AMD64's I used the stock HSF and the thermal interface material that came with it. Works well for me.