okay here's the deal:

although I havea nother post on a DFI mobo in the mobo's section this is a different mobo of a friend (why do people buy DFI ? )

He was running Win2k (sp1) upto last week when he started to have problems.. (hangs, BSoDs, apps illegal..) so he decided to format..

now this is the fun part -

he cannot install win2k (not a regualr cd nor the one I gave him to try with sp2 integrated..)

everytime the setup stops somewhere saying a file cannot be copied (different files each time) some of the times he gets BSOD's on NTFS or others..

after he called me I told him to remove RAM and leave it with only 256MB that works and also to remove all the cards and install only with mobo,vga, hdd and Cd.

still no go..

so I went there this evening.
his config (now without any other parts)
Intel P-III 450+fan (no heat problem.)
DFI P2XBL/e Rev.A mobo (slot1) i440BX latest BIOS
512MB PC-100 RAM 3 DIMMS 2x128, 1x256 (tried
a few other DIMMS)
Quantum 20GB HDD
Toshiba DVD (tried a different CD-ROM with PIO and not DMA)
3d labs Oxygen VX1

now I'm pretty sure it's the IDE controller that died but I will go there tomorrow with some new RAM and another Graphics card to check it out.

now rember this computer was running win2k so it is compatible with it..
the only recent hardware changes were adding RAM (but we checked it without the new RAM) and removing a U.S.R 56KBps ISA modem (but problems started before)

if the new RAM and grphics card won't help I'm going to assume I have a nother dead DFI mobo..

but since it's always a good idea to get a fresh point of view - is there anything I'm missing, any ideas ?

tia for all the help ..