Thanks to all for the suggestions on this.  It turned out that my first
guess was correct.  The motherboard was bad.  After another day of
trying, it got to the point where it wouldn't post at all.  Everything
in it was all he way in.  While I know that memory can cause erratic
behavior, two brand new sticks (yes, I tried them one at a time) would
have had to been bad.  Replaced the ECS junk with an Iwill P8HT-S and it
worked on the first try.  Nice board!  Intel 845PE chipset, LAN, Promise
IDE 133 Raid, and SATA built in and at a reasonable price.  Again,
thanks for everyone's suggestions.

BTW, there appear to be a large number of 256 Meg PNY 266 DDR RAM that
are actually 333's.  Look for sticks with Infineon chips ending in -6.
 I heard about this and made a point of getting them and the MB
recognized them as 333.

Art Cassel

I previously wrote;

>Building new computer.  Here's what's in it;
>
>MB  ECS P4VXASD2+
>P-IV 2.4 MHz
>Maxtor 80 Gig 8 Meg cache (master on IDE 1)
>Asus 40X CD-ROM (master on IDE 2) (This is the only part that isn't
>brand new
>AGP Mad Dog Ti 4200 64 Meg DDR
>Teac floppy
>2-256 Meg 266 RAM
>
>Win XP Pro in CD-Rom.  System starts normal.  Memory check shows all 512
>Meg.  Recognizes Maxtor HD and Asus CD.  I had it set up so boot
>sequence was CD>HD>Floppy.  Got to AMIBIOS Setup Configuration screen
>and stopped.  Over a whole lot of tries, it has (2 times) gone into a
>Novell 10/100 ethernet setup check screen where it counted off some kind
>of ROM up to 200 then stopped.  It has gone to the XP CD twice and
>reported "Can't find NTLDR."  The HD is brand new and unformatted.
>
>Got tired of doing this over and over.  Decided to install Win 98SE from
>boot disk and upgrade after.  Set boot sequence to Floppy>HD>CD.  No
>good.  Usually stops at AMIBIOS Setup Configuration screen.  The few
>times it has gone past this, it reports I/O system error, Press any key.
> That leads to endless repetition of the same except for an occasional
>"Invalid System Disk error.  Replace disk, press any key."  I'm at wits
>end (a very short journey).  I've checked to make sure everything is
>seated (not that much to check).  I'm concerned that the MB may be bad
>(I know it's not a very good board).  XP Pro does o run in my old
>computer so I know the disk is good.  Oh yeah, the CD activity light
>stays on the whole time computer is on as long as disk is in it.  I need
>your help.  Thanks in advance.
>

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