Bootstrapping Repeatedly Fails w/ Kernel Panics - SOLVED(?)

[yogipsu]

It's been an adventure to get this far-- but I'm at my wits' end, even though I've installed Gentoo on two other machines. I'm almost certain that the symptoms are indicative of a hardware problem, as they occur in random spots and are random themselves.

This always crops up during the bootstrap phase, and I'd post the code if I could, but I've gotten things like: machine check exceptions, dereferenced null pointers, and other kinds of kernel panic. (It's always a kernel panic during the compile stage.) Ran memtest86 overnight without a single error, so even though this seems like a memory problem, maybe the RAM isn't bad?

Relevant Specs:
AMD Athlon 3200+ (not overclocked; 200mhz x 11.0 multiplier)
ASUS A7N8X-X mobo (now updated to 1010-X bios)
2x256MB PC4000 RAM
2004.1 livecd (tried with 2004.2 as well) and the smp kernel for forcedeth driver

I'd be thankful for any help at all.

[yogipsu]

Update:

Tried with gentoo-nofb and it got farther than before. Don't know where it actually failed, but this time I got a "null dereferenced pointer" and a "kernel panic! Killing interrupt handler" error.

Maybe this has something to do with an IRQ/APIC thing? I guess I'll try enabling APIC in the BIOS and having more conservative CFLAGS. (I thought the gentoo-nofb kernel would work better, and it did, so I added -O2 -march=athlon-xp -pipe -fomit-frame-buffer -mleaf-omit-frame-buffer and others.)

Edit: Because this is somewhat cathartic, and maybe someone having the same problem as me won't waste their time on things not working--

I remounted the CPU after thoroughly cleaning it with isopropyl alcohol and reapplied Arctic Silver 5. Originally I didn't bother with cleaning it, just simply wiped off the heatsink with water and the CPU was fresh. It's now running a lot cooler since I applied as thin a coat as possible. I'm also trying the gentoo-fb kernel with "nousb" appended. Modprobing forcedeth worked fine.

But bootstrapping failed with the "defererenced null pointer" kernel error. BIOS showed CPU at less than 50 degrees. It's not overheating.

Memtest is at 30 passes now and hasn't had a single error.

---

Update:

So, I got it to bootstrap. Maybe it was just a fluke, but I booted gentoo-nofb nousb noapic acpi=off. I'm emerging system right now, and I'm pleasantly surprised (and relieved), because that was such a quick bootstrap!

I think it was an issue between the kernel on the livecd and my hardware. But none of that matters right now, since I'll be building my own kernel soon.

Hopefully this helps someone else somehow!