Well I recently reinstalled windows, and ever since my computers been locking up and coming up with hardware errors. Which has never happened before in the two years i've had my computer.
I was wondering, which would fix the problem, new RAM or a new processor.Well with the WEALTH of information provided, I would say check your RAM with a free download at www.memtest86.com

Check each stick individually, and then TOGETHER if more than one. Let it run a couple of hours each time.

Posting a few specifics about your system could be helpful, but this will give you something to do.
AMD Athlon XP 2000+ (1.7GHz)
512MB RAM
256MB Video Card
DFI NF4 Ultra Infinity Motherboard
(built by me)and how do i check them?Download the free program above and run it.what do i do if there is something wrong with my ram? just get new sticks?Yes. Quote

OK Joe, when you did the re-install, did you re-partition the hard-drive and FULL format to NTFS? yes

If you open a command window and TYPE chkdsk do you see 4096 bytes in each allocation unit somewhere? yes

What was the initial reason which caused you to have to re-install? no apparent reason.. just wanted too.
How old is the computer? 2 years
 Has the CMOS battery ever been changed and has the RAM ever been re-seated? yes they both have.. just before i wiped it too.

Is the inside of the cabinet free of dust and are all fans running properly? thats the reason i took out the ram. (dust) and the fans are running

Can you run a test on your RAM and also run the drive manufacturer's drive diagnostic diskette on to test the hard-drive? how?

What is the drive size, partition size, drive speed, buffer size and which sort of IDE cables are you using? 60GB, don't know the rest.