New computer BSODs and restarts when installing programs/drivers/etc.

[Steyrkat]

I recently built a new gaming computer that I had been planning for years, and after putting it all together I have had problems left and right. At first I thought it was the Windows XP installation that was corrupt, and so I've installed XP again many times, and even using friend's discs to test. Eventually I figured out it might be a hardware problem, or even a driver problem.
The BSODs I received said DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL and found that it was related with drivers and memory. I switched out my DDR2 800s (Crucial Ballistix) for my friends RAM of the same speed (G.Skill) and it seemed to have solved the problem perfectly: no random BSODs and no random restarts. The only problem was the XP installation had created a useless C drive from a previous XP installation, and so I reformatted once more to delete the partition.
After installing all the drivers, I popped in Ghost Recon and it gave me a BSOD (though no driver error was given), and always at a specific point in the installation. I managed to install Ghost Recon once when I had the useless C drive, possibly because I hadn't updated windows XP or installed other drivers? But I had this BSOD for Ghost Recon on other installs on this computer.
I think I have reformatted 10 times and so many BSODs I couldn't even count. I really need help on fixing this problem, and to figure out if the problem is hardware or software related, or even both.

My setup:
Asus P5K Deluxe (the DDR2 edition)
Intel Conroe E6600
Crucial Ballistix 2x1gb
EVGA 8800 GTS 320mb
Thermaltake Toughpower 600W
320gb Seagate HD, sata
Sony DVD drive, sata
Zalman 9500 heatsink

So far I've figured out:
The problem occurs only when downloading or installing something
My computer temperatures are stable, to my knowledge
Video drivers are not related
Switching out the RAM helped, but did not completely fix the problem
The computer runs perfectly when playing games (at least the ones I managed to install: GRAW and Soldiers:Heroes of WW2)

Any and all suggestions and help is appreciated. I've been diagnosing the problem for a week already, and I need to know if I need to RMA any parts.

 

[Rudster8161]

ok here is what you should do RMA your ram and format your hdd.
to make sure your ram is bad run memtest86(google it and instrutions on how to use it) make sure to have YOUR ram in there

 

[Äߧý∩†H♠H䎀]

Dude trust me on this 100% I had the same freaking problem and I tried tons of stuff to get it to go away. At first I thought it was my memory. I ran memtest got zero errors. So I bought a 2nd Harddrive still got the error. Then I bought a new graphics card still the same error. Okay i'm going nuts by now then I decided to pull my ram thinking maybe a dimm slot was bad afterwords it would not post. Turns out I had a bad stick of ram. If you use memtest you have to let it run for 8+ hrs to make sure it runs both sticks of ram completely.

Trust me you have a bad memory module. Just send it back and get some new sticks.

 

[Steyrkat]

Well like I said, I swapped RAM with my friend. 2 gigs, same speed, and it made it a LOT better, but I still got BSODs. I think the problem isn't just the RAM. I made further tests just now, and I get BSODs in the middle of installing Ghost Recon and Hitman: Blood Money. Both of these games are on DVDs, so I figured I should try playing a DVD movie.

I popped in two movies, both of which did not work because InterActual Player told me "Playback failed due to a problem with the video subsystem. Try changing the screen resolution." Changing the screen resolution did not help. I then downloaded Klite Codec Pack, which played the DVDs properly. Still, now the video card is one suspect among the others: CPU, Motherboard, Power supply. I asked my friends to bring their parts over to swap and test tomorrow, I'll post any results then.