Brand new system but controll panel doesn't work

message from =?Utf-8?B?VHJvdWJsZWQgYnVpbGRlcg==?= on 4 Jun 2004

I just built a 2.2GHz Athlon XP 3200+ system running on an ASUS A7V600 Motherboard with 1 gig of Elixir pc 3200 (2 512's). The cpu is a 400MHz running on a 400MHz bus with 400MHz RAM. ASUS GeForce 5 5950 ULTRA 8X 256MB for Video, 2 Maxtor ATA 133 80GB Hard drives(C: is partitioned at 17.5GB and 56GB, XP is on First Partition), ASUS 52X CD-RW, NU 8x DVD-+RW and an internal IN-WIN CR-i500 USB 2.0 Flash Card Reader. Also it has an ATHLON approved 400watt Power supply running in a MGE Gamer M1 LCD Case.

Fresh install of XP PRO, all drivers and apps loaded with no problem. System runs perfectly EXCEPT that the controll panel sub menus DO NOT highlight or work. Says "application has stopped responding".

I have reinstalled windows 3 times with full formats 1 without format, swapped master and slave settings on all drives, Disconnected all but c: drive, swapped RAM out, tuned speeds down in CMOS, Dissabled almost everything in CMOS, updated ALL drivers, dissabled all startup apps or just some of them, checked all power and IDE cables and nothing has worked.

There are a few things that acted a bit strange. After the first install of XP, i formatted and repartitioned the first drive. When i did this i wanted the FAT32 file system. It worked fine on the first partition but the second would NOT let me use FAT32 so i had to use NTSF? File system. It also forced me to use NTFS on the Second drive which was NOT partitioned. Not sure if you can have both on one system. ALSO the device manager says everything is running just fine but when i check the system for compatability with the XP install disk it says that my 3COM LAN on my motherboard is NOT compatible with XP. I find that hard to believe, so i think it may just be a product of whatever is wrong with the system.

Any Ideas? Could the power supply cause such a problem? Grounding problem? Or could the 3COM LAN adapter on my motherboard really not be compatible with XP and in turn when controll panel is gathering info on the system it can't find what it needs and hangs?

Already went to ASUS and there is no update for the BIOS or an XP Patch for the LAN. Went to 3COM and downloaded new drivers but still no help.

Any help would be greatly appreciated cuz it's got me stumped.

Thanx

Archived message: Brand new system but controll panel doesn't work (Microsoft WinXP)