ok here is the story

HP SR1500NX

someone jammed the keyboard and mouse into the ports breaking off all the pins inside the orgional motherboard... customer opted to replace.

go to the local computer shop, buy a replacement motherboard. ASrock... my friend down there explained it as an off brand ASUS.

replaced the motherboard, added a chip of ram.

the board will boot to the point where it loads an operating system.. then it stops... but it doesnt freeze because control alt delete still reboots.

try the IDE... dont even get the win xp splash... try xp install... says "inspecting hardware configuration" and then the screen goes black but no loss of video signal

checked all ide cables, checked ram, checked jumper settings, removed cmos battery and flashed it, removed all extra devices so only hard drive, cpu, ram, and onboard video were in use... still no boot

tried a different hard drive, no boot, tried usb and network boot... no good.

do you think it could be either
A> lack of power *250watt psu*
B>bad motherboard although its new

i called the place i bought it, i should be able to replace it no problem.

has anyone ran into this before??

perhaps HP has something blocking it?.. but i dont know where they would