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Here are the current specs to put things in context:

  • ECS P4VXASD2+ V5.0
  • Intel Pentium 4 Northwood 2.8 GHz
  • 2x 512MB PC2100 DDR266 SDRAM
  • Maxtor DiamondMax 10 250 GB PATA (IDE) HDD
  • Gigabyte 52x CD-ROM
  • NVIDIA TNT2 Pro 16 MB
  • USB bracket
  • Modem PCI

Before, I actually had a 300 GB hard drive installed. However, I read the FAQ for the motherboard and discovered that a maximum of 250 GB hard drive was supported. So I ended up finding the one listed above and put that in.

However, upon booting up, I reset the BIOS to defaults and auto-detected all the drives installed. The 250 GB came up as something like 251.0 GB. I didn't think much about it until I tried to boot up a Windows XP installation disc. It booted up successfully and run for about a minute before the computer randomly rebooted.

I've made sure that all the jumpers and settings are correct and everything has been installed correctly. I've tried running it without the addons and one stick of RAM but still the same thing.

What else could be causing this problem?

SOLUTION posted in my answer.

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2 Answers 2

Your powersupply might be ill equipped to support an extra drive. Try getting a better powersupply from a friend and see if the system boots. You can also try disconnecting the CD drive and see if the system boots

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A 500W power supply was used in place of the 300W, but same situation. I'mm pretty sure it's the hard drive as the RAM passed testing and all jumpers are set correctly. –  Wesley May 7 '10 at 4:35
up vote 0 down vote accepted

So it turns out that even 1 GB more than the officially supported hard drive capacity for this motherboard will cause it to be unsettled. I got a 40 GB hard drive for free and gave that a try. Windows XP installation disc booted up without error.

The solution is then to search up any FAQ on the manufacturer's website for any hard drive capacity restrictions. Make sure that the hard drive's real capacity is under the maximum listed hard drive capacity supported by your motherboard. Even going over a little bit will cause instability of the machine.

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