hey pc gods,

i *thought* i was a decent tech. just putting together a new box with
the following specs:

athlon 2600+ barton 333 fsb (w/ stock grease 'n cooler)
a7n8x-x mobo bios 1010
2 sticks of samsung 512mb pc3200 @ 400mhz/2.5 lat rated for the
nvidia2 chipset
wd 100 gig hd (no os but was using previously as a storage drive)
52x cd/burner combo
480w demon something or other psu
old agp fx 5200 w/ 256mb video card

anyway... all hobbled together and when powered up the ram gives
166mhz speed rather than the expected 400 (and just learned this mobo
can't do dual channel). then it takes a long time to find the drive
and tries to boot from the cd-rom where my xp installation cd is.
after a while the setup is checking your hardware message comes up and
then screen goes blank and stays blank.

when i put in another drive with xp the same post but i get an ever so
brief blue screen before it reboots.

i've messed TO DEATH with the fsb and multiplier settings trying
umpteen million combinations but to no avail. tried different ram too
but also no diff. tried different video card, same deal. temps are
running at a cool 30c thanks to 5 case fans plus the cpu and psu fans.

what have i missed?

thanks for any help,
rasiel