Last night I attempted to install Fedora Core 2 on a P2.8E and ran into some problems. First off, the installation halted, giving me:

CPU 0: Machine Check Exception: 0000000000000004

I ran memtest86 which passed 3 times without any problems, so I rebooted with Hyper-Threading off and the problem went away (but my troubles weren't over).

Next when I tried to install the kernel on the remaining 65GB of unformatted space on my SATA 160GB drive, disk druid failed to setup automatically and I had to setup the partitions myself. I started to setup the partitions, and the setup completely froze (I had to do a hard reset).

I repeated the install, got past the partition part (didn't freeze there this time, but I did have to set it up manually). Selected my packages (I just selected Everything), and the install froze during the actual installlation portion of the install (formatting portion went fine).

I have a feeling the problem has to do with my hardware. The machine was built over the weekend by myself, but I am only using the power supply (400W) which came with the case ($50 case). I replaced the CPU fan/heat synce with a Mad Dog CoperChill ($20 at CompUSA), but may need to beef it up some more. My BIOS reports a temp in the low to mid 50's Celsius when I am idle. The other hardware is 1 CD-R/RW drive, 1 ATI Radeon 9600XT, and 1 Corsair 512MB stick of PC3200 400MHz RAM. The Mobo is an ECS 848P-A .

Thanks again for any help!

Way too hot. My Prescott 2.8 runs at 41-46C with the stock Intel cooler.

Check the thermal stuff between heatsink and CPU.

I picked up some Arctitc Silver 5, stripped the old thermal crap, applied the AS5, and replaced the heatsink all to no avail. I am still in the low 50's with the CopperChill and high fifties with the Intel one. The Intel fan seems to run at about 3750RPM when the machine is idle. Since the machine does freeze, I don't believe it's a malfunctioning mobo sensor. I will try a higher end heatsink to see if there's a difference but at this point I don't expect much.