I am reparing a friend's Dell xps and I've never ran onto a hardware problem.
When he brought it to me, the computer would start with the I tried to start windows normally and it crashed and a blue screen came up saying that there is:
OK, then i tried it on safe mode, and I had the same error.
Ok my first conclusion was that the boot-sector was not working , so I preceded to fix it.
I repaired the windows boot sector and still had the same problem.
I backed up all the info from the hdd, then I formatted it, and installed a fresh copy of windows. Still the same problem.
I checked the hdd on another computer and windows ran fine.
Ok, so now what. Ok I figured maybe its something in sata conection, i plugged in another hdd with another OS in another sata slot. AND STILL THE SAME PROBLEM.
I tried installing windows Vista directly on the faulty computer.
When I run the OS from cd it crashes the same way.
So it has to be a harware problem.
I ran the harware diagnostics that comes in the service partition on the Dell xps, and found no errors on:
1: Mother Board
2: Memory
3: Processor

Can anyone recommend a Harware Diagnostics Tool that does not run on any OS. That I can boot from cd of USB jumpdrive. Or if you know what the problem is from the top of your head please feel free to tell me.

this is what i see when i've overclocked a processor beyond it's capacity. what are the system specs?

check your memory sticks, or it could be also a faulty processor..

Madoverclocker:
DELL XPS 410
System Specs:
Intel Core 2 duo 2.13 ghz, 1066 mhz Bus, 2mb cache
1 ghrz DDR2 2 x 512 mhz
300 gig HDD
400 watt PSU
DVD-rw
Windows xp media center

c_guan77:
I also believe it is either memory or a fried processor.
How can i check if it's either?
System check yields no errors.
I don't have another pc with ddr2 socket and core 2 duo socket

Check the RAM by using something called MemTest86. Google it, and chose free download. Download the .ISO image and burn it to a CD using an image burner program like DeepBurner (freeware) . Simply burning it as a file wont work, we want to burn the .ISO so that its bootable

jbennet:
I found a couple of Memory Diagnostic tools.
Windows Memory Manager, and Micro-Scope.
I ran the memory test on both and found no errors.
I don't think it's the memory anymore.
I'm only left with the processor.
Any suggestions there??

Download CPU-Z and post the data here

I solved the Problem Thank you all.
The originally installed OS was 64 bit. And I fixed with a 32 bit OS. This messed up something somewhere. I did't realize that the OS was 64 bit.
I formatted the HDD installed a fresh Vista copy in 32 bit, and vuala. Installed smoothly. runs perfectly.
Now I have many technitian tools in my toolbox thanks to all of you.

I was on a Dell Dimension 9200 with the same error. The problem is, I am installing Windows XP to a brand new SATA harddrive. The original hard drive was diagnosed as "Fail" Code & with Dell's Diagnositcs.

I booted from Windows XP CD-ROM disk, it copied some drivers. It would then give the STOP error 0X000000076 (0xF78E1524) immediately after it displayed "Starting Windows Setup". I had already swap memories, tired different cables/ ports. Any ideas?