I ran into this same problem when we bought the 3 dells we use at the shop. It had me gritting my teeth. I could run anything but the oem xp. I'm happy to hear you didn't go through the days of trying. Once I found the setting that made the bsod go away in the bios I left it. It is supposed to be less efficient, but I can only imagine the things in store for when I try to get the drivers going during install.