Which is one of the reasons that blogging is light. I ordered a new motherboard that arrived today. It was the same as the one that failed (only thirty-six bucks plus shipping), so I figured it would be a painless swap.

Almost. It loads Windows, and then prompts me for name and password. Shortly thereafter, it bluescreens with a bunch of hex and a message:

DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

The problem is with a file called portcls.sys

I tried reinstalling Windows, to no avail. I cannot get the system up. Does anyone have any theories? I'm wondering if it's a memory problem, but I don't have any spares of that type to test with.

[Update at 5 PM EDT]

Never mind.

I found the problem. It was some new audio de-vice on this version of the board, that I apparently installed the wrong driver for. I uninstalled it in safe mode, and got the machine up.

I should add that one of the things that added to this joyful computer experience was a relatively new keyboard on which the F8 key didn't work...

Found this on MS:
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/Windows/XP/all/reskit/en-us/Default.asp?url=/resources/documentation/Windows/XP/all/reskit/en-us/prmd_stp_ottj.asp

Sounds like a memory issue, all right. Could be one of them was blown during the transfer. Another thing you'll want to try, though, is updating your BIOS. If your old CPU was updated (and could accommodate your memory) and you replace it with a new (non-updated) CPU then it could be having problems addressing the memory.

Go to the website of the motherboard manufacturer, watch your bootup messages, and make sure you have the latest BIOS version. Be happy to help you from there if you need, just let me know.

There was no CPU or memory change--just the motherboard, with an exact replacement (unless it's a later version--I didn't check).

Anyway, as I noted, I found the problem, but thanks.

Only 36 bucks for a motherboard -- and you expect it NOT to fail? ;-)