I am upgrading my computer from a 2.4ghx P4 to a 3.2ghz P4. I bought an ASUS P4P800 SE motherboard, 1GB (2 512) PC3200, a new fan, and 420w powersupply. I installed the new motherboard in place of my old one, installed the cpu, ram, powersupply and fan. turned on the computer and got to the bios page. I exited that and the screen with the windows xp popped up. the one with the blue bar moving below the windows xp logo. That is is, it just sits there and the little blue bar keeps going. I try rebooting in safe mode and it freezes. Is it the cpu? I took out the motherboard and put in the old one and now i am writing this message on my 2.4ghz. So its not the hard drive. is the cpu bad?

you may need to reinstall windows. i can't move my win 98 hdd from my old 500mhz system to my p4 system. so it may be the same thing. try another hdd and tell us how it goes.

p4 at 3330mhz
256mb pc3200
80gb wd hdd
geforce 4 mx440 teporary
Audigy 2 ZS
dvd and cd burner
only 15 so i am tight on cash

My current HD on my 2.4ghz is running win XP pro, so all I am doing is changing the motherboard, ram, and CPU.

What are the symptoms of a bad cpu? would it get to the windows startup screen if the cpu was bad?

It's not your cpu. It seems more like Windows itself. Whenever you move your hard drive onto a another motherboard it's common for it to freeze up if you didn't reformat windows when you installed the new motherboard, because the windows that was on your older pc was used to seeing that motherboard drives and loading them up onto windows but now it sees a new motherboard and it doesn't reconize any of those new drives and it's causing windows to freeze right when windows is trying to load up the drives.

Do you reformat windows? you could because windows will then see the new drives on the motherboard and load them up.

Or you can repair the drives on your existing windows and that will fix the problem.

here is the link for repairing the drives in windows.

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

If you got a bunch of stuff on the exisiting windows and it may take a while to install everything again then do a repair install that way all of your software, settings and windows won't get erased.

If you don't have a alot of stuff on your pc then reformat it.

I agree with Cobra_R...there's nothing wrong with your CPU, it's a Windows problem caused by the hardware changes. Follow his advice & do the "repair install".

Asus A7N8X-X
1800+ @ 8 x 210MHz
512MB PC3200
Asus Ti4800SE 128MB
WinME/WinXP Pro

Window XP boot file does not have the new hardware you installed or made change. You may try using WinXP orginal disk to boot for repair. Often, you need to reinstall.

If you CPU is bad, you won't get to BIOS screen.

Ahhh the refreshing sound of answers. Exactly what I wanted to hear. I'll reformat and give it a try. Thanks all for your help. A lifesaver. Good day

I had the same problem. Upgraded mb, cpu, and ram in a new case. Kept the hdd and monitor. Would boot put Windows would not load. Received "Windows did not boot properly" screen but any option chosen would not load Windows, not even in safe mode. Booted with the Windows XP Home cd and followed the instructions at http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm as mentioned above. Everything is ok now, didn't lose anything except Windows updates.

Couldn't believe that Windows XP did not handle this situation more gracefully.