does the crash say nething else besides the error code.

forgot to add, ive now formatted and re-installed a freash copy of xp 3 times now and still it crashes...

umm i have no idea if this program works but you can try it, it claims that it will take an error code and give you a description of the error you are having. http://www.gregorybraun.com/MSWinErr.html

<--edit wrong type of error messages sorry.

i get the error code...

Error code 0000009c, parameter1 00000004, parameter2 80545ffo, parameter3 b2000010, parameter4 00010c0f.
Event id - 1003
category (102)

thats all the event viewer tells me.

apparently the error message means...

The storage control block address is invalid.

anyone know exactly what this means and how do i fix it ?.
thanks

anyone ??????

For now leave the sound card out - no need to complicate things more with something not necessary to run the system. Personally when I'm troubleshooting hardware I take everything off except a hard drive, RAM chip and video card...you might want to do this too and also don't drive yourself nuts trying to troubleshoot what could ultimately end up being a loose cable somewhere, save yourself some hassle and disconnect everything you don't need to run the system, put your power supply on a UPS and check all your connections twice before you do anything else! You can always go back to working on other issues like the sound card once the system is stable again. Based on that error and what you've said here the problem sounds like memory to me. You're on the right track - you're answering your own question here. If you take the memory out and it works with no error then you can make an educated guess that the conflict is something to do with the memory. I would start by detaching all memory chips except one and then start adding them back one-by-one until your error pops up. When the error shows up you know more about where it is coming from. If it's when you put the fourth RAM chip in, for instance, then it's probably either that dimm slot or the RAM chip itself so try the same ram chip in slot 3 and see if the error pops up...if not it's probably the slot...this is just an example but you get the idea. Memory is one of those things I find very hard to troubleshoot because the same ram chip that works fine 3 times in a row is hard to pick out as a point of failure when it doesn't work the 4th time - I've had this happen many times...you just have to be a smart, thorough detective. I've found I have to go one chip at a time and one slot at a time with numerous reboots sometimes to identify a failing ram chip or slot. A failing slot can be equally frustrating and hard to identify. Good luck!

Been testing these sticks now for approximatly 24hrs now, and im even more confussed about the state of my system than when i started...

I have 1 stick that the pc wont boot up with, i have 3 that all test ok, but out of the 3 that test ok 1 of them was in the machine being tested while i was taking me mrs to work and when i got home there were no errors reported but the computer had crashed again in bios mode during the test....

ive just tried to get the machine to boot up again with a different stick inserted but all im getting is error beeps and no boot, so now im totally confused, could i have a fauly motherboard or dodgy bios.

when we first built the pc it wouldn't boot up at all until we downloaded the latest bios update for it and its run very unstable ever since...

Steady beeps is usually an indication of RAM error - this is sounding more like a bad slot than a bad chip. If possible try a different slot - instead of slot 1 use slot 2. Some boards require that you insert RAM logically say from slot 1 to 4 so if that's the case and slot 1 is hosed then you may be right about the system board being totally screwed. Something I would do before I did anything else is reset the CMOS. Most boards have a little watch-sized battery you can remove to force setup to reset and flush its hardware config tables. I've seen CMOS get frozen up before and considering you're changing around hardware quite a bit this can cause the BIOS to foul up and fail to update CMOS and do things like not recognize RAM chips. The steady beeps are most likely due to CMOS being fouled or a bad memory slot. I usually take the CMOS battery out, turn the system on without the battery and let it post then turn it off again then put the battery back and see if it acts different on the next boot. Sorry I don't know your board well enough to give you more specifics and I'm not really very up on new hardware so forgive me if your board is different. Good luck.