AMD HP Pavilion PCs and Windows XP Service Pack 3

I came across an issue today with an HP Pavilion desktop PC with an AMD processor that displayed a BSOD error message after it was updated to Windows XP Service Pack 3.

I found the resolution here, which involved booting into Safe Mode and changing a registry setting that was causing the system to load incompatible Intel drivers due to a mistake on HP’s part.

There are two ways to fix the issue, both of which will require the system be booted into Safe Mode.

Non-Regedit Fix:

1. Start system in Safe Mode.
2. Click on the Start button.
3. Click on Run.
4. Type “sc config intelppm start= disabled“. (note the space after the = sign)
5. Click OK.
6. Reboot.

Regedit Fix:

1. Start system in Safe Mode.
2. Click on the Start button.
3. Click on Run.
4. Type “regedit”.
5. Click OK.
6. In Regedit, locate and click on the key “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Intelppm“.
7. Click on “Start” entry in the right pane and click Modify.
8. Change the value from “1” to “4”.
9. Click OK.
10. Exit Regedit.
11. Reboot the system.

After the reboot, everything worked fine. For some reason, the Intel service was set to start, causing issues on the AMD-based system.