Broken Motherboard?

[BorisTheSpider]

Hi.

Yesterday I read that if I plug one of my sticks of Crucial 512MB DDR PC-2700 RAM in the third RAM slot(along with the same type of RAM in slot one or two) it would enable Dual Channel DDR. Well I had a look in my manual for the motherboard and it suggeted that I could do this. So I tried it out, unfortunelty when Win XP booted up to my desktop I got a blue screen error, it says that it needs to shut down to prevent damage to my PC. So I changed the RAM back to the original slot I had it installed, unfortunetly I was still getting the same error except that it was even before Win XP would boot properly. Anyway I tried loads of combinations and even installed my old stick of TwinMOS ram in and I was still getting the error. Then something else happened, I wasn't getting the error anymore, instead I was getting a message saying that there has been an error and that I could start Windows XP normally, Start Win XP using the last configuration, Start in Safe Mode etc. I selected those three options but each one would cause my PC to restart and the same message would keep appearing.

I tried resseting CMOS by switching the jumper on the mobo(MSI K7N2 Delta ILSR) back and forth and tried changing power cables etc. None of those worked so I put my HDD in my borthers PC so he could back up some of his files, it recognised the HDD and the files were pretty much intact. Anyway I installed the HDD in my PC again and decided to reformat my HDD. But unfortunetly it wouldn't even reach the partition bit, instead it would come up with a error. So then I decided to install my old mobo(Asus A7N8X Deluxe) and reformat my HDD and it actually worked, and now I have Win XP back up and running.

What could be wrong with my MSI K7N2 ILSR mobo? Is it likely to be damaged or is it a problem with the BIOS that's not letting me reformat XP? I can't believe how switching my RAM could do such a thing, considering it was fine to do it. I'm pissed off with myself because things were ok until I had to piss around with my PCs hardware.

Thanks for reading.

[Daymonkey]

have you tryed :

A bios update

or

Taking out the bios battery for a hour while you switched the jumper to clear cmos

[BorisTheSpider]

have you tryed :

A bios update

or

Taking out the bios battery for a hour while you switched the jumper to clear cmos

I updated BIOS before this happened, and since I couldn't get on Win XP then I wouldn't be able to anyway.

I havn't tried removing the battery though, unfortunetly I removed the mobo and have my old one installed instead.