I've just built a new system Athlon XP 2000 with a 333mhz FSB. When trying to install either XP or 2K the system crashes (blue screen of death). Installing 98 or ME is fine. I noticed if I slow down the FSB to 266mhz then I can install XP or 2K. But I want to got back up to the 333mhz. I've been told it has something to do with the disk cache settings? Has anybody else had this problem?

Which amd chip do u have, the barton or tbred?

The AMD 2000+ is supposed to run at 266 FSB. You are overclocking it at 333 FSB. When you over clock your run the risk of file corruption, which is what is happening to you. It is advisable to do the installation at 266 FSB and then after all of your drivers for your hardware are loaded and everything is running smoothly. Take your FSB to 333 and make sure your multiplier is set accordingly, and make sure your RAM is set to follow the FSB speed and Most importantly is to make sure your PCI BUS speed does not excede 40mhz. You will have to set the divider accordingly, as well as your AGP BUS. It should be set to half of your FSB. If your PCI BUS goes above 40 mhz. you get into file corruption problems. Ideally it should run at 33 mhz. Good Luck.

Sorry, It's a 2600 not a 2000. The 2600 does have a 333FSB, but when I lower it 266 it becomes a 2000. The mobo has a 400FSB. Apart from all that when I use a hard disk that has XP already installed on it, it simply crashes immediately. Yet with a drive with 98 on it it worked fine. I don't understand. The voltages are st at defualt (auto). There is no overclocking. The CPU and RAM was designed for this board.

Well, I don't like to tell you this, but the symptoms you were talking about still telltales the processor is unstable. Windows 98 SE installation may not fail, but Windows XP installation failing with a BSOD simply means Windows 98 SE is not uncovering the stability problem your processor chip has, because Windows 98 SE installation process don't work the processor as hard as Windows XP installation does, that's why Windows XP installation process fails with a BSOD, but the Windows 98 SE installation process was successful. I had that type of problem when overclocking an Athlon T-bird 900 mhz to 1050 mhz. Under Windows 98 SE, the PC was stable, even when playing games, but under Windows XP Pro, when the Windows XP Pro installation process didn't fail and Windows XP Pro was stable when not running games, everytime I ran Need For Speed III, Windows XP Pro would always crash with a STOP: IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL usually within 1 hour. Try increasing the Vcore by one or two steps.

Thanks for the info mate. I may take the CPU back if this keeps happening as I'm not even overclocking this system. Everything is set to auto default and it simply doesn't like the Athlon running at 2600.

I just wanted to say thanks, (If you're still reading this?) 3rd page now LOL! Anyway, I did what you said and increased the Vcore by 5% and now it seems to running more stable. No crashes on the 333mhz FSB. I could install XP at last. Ran Unreal Tournament 2003 for about an hour with no problems so it looks like everything is OK. Thanks again mate.