I recently INSTALLED a new p4 3.2 northwood cpu into my gigabyte 8ipe1000pro mothorboard. Upon booting up I get the system32 \HAL.dll error.

I have checked the cpu temp (its at around 60c) If I put the previous cpu in (p4 2.6) the machine starts up no problem and enters windows without any error.

I did an os reinstall, but it would either hang up on reinstall or give me the same message.
Once I did get into windows but the computer shut off after about an hour and cam back on with the same message system32\hal.dll

Any ideas??
The Hal other than just a Hardware Abstraction Layer are also used as a Piracy Protector built into MS OS ... If your OS thinks that you are dropping the hard drive into a clone ( problem in the days of pre XP ) MS Cracked down on this Piracy Problem of building a drive in original system and move drive to clone for free illegal OS and software.

Usually you are prompted to reactivate your OS Key with MS server or with MS India SUPPORT. At least that was the case with my Win 2003 Server Enterprise Edition after upgrading CPU's. But it looks like you swapped Motherboard and CPU, so many changes to break the HAL

More can be found on microsofts website at:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/reskit/c29621675.mspx

And here regarding Hals:

http://www.5starsupport.com/info/stop_error.htm#79

**** I'd downgrade, backup all your important data, and perform a clean install of XP from MS OEM Installation set. This should go smooth. You will probably not be able to use the original MFR Restore XP install to get this working...Drastic Hardware Changes break the Restore Set...

Hope this helps :-/

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