New PC - problems - Power only for 10seconds

[littlevoices]

Hi all,

I decided to put together a new PC, which I did today. Unfortunately it looks like I have a dud piece of hardware, most likely motherboard, but with an outside chance of the cpu/psu.

The system starts up (fans wirr, power on for the soundcard/disks), for 10 seconds, after which time everything stops... waits a second or two, and then repeats!

System specs:
- Core Duo E6600
- BFG 640MB 8800GTS
- Soundblaster Audigy Xi-fi
- 2x1GB 1067MHz OCZ RAM (Pair of)
- Gigabyte GA-P35-DQ6 Motherboard (Rev 1.0)
- Various SATA drives, primary of 2 WD 500gig RE ones
-Corsair 520w PSU

Quick build history:
- Put together PC
- Turned on - all apparently fine, went into BIOS, altered various settings (turning on RAID/tweaking etc).
-Restarted
-Started windows install, realised it was going to G drive (I had numerous other disks in there), so powered down the PC (gently enough).
- Unplugged various power/SATA cables from disks, rebooted, went into BIOS to see if I could boost the RAM speed from 800, then saw the CPU temperature of 73degrees!
- Panic, turn off PC ASAP
- Watched PC start up - woh, the CPU fan isn't moving (default Intel fan with the CPU)
- Think fan must be broken, shops close soon, run to buy a new one, get back, install
- Hmm, this fan doesn't start either, google it, ahh, its a "feature" of the board, perhaps I just wasted some cash on a better fan
-At this point I notice the problem described above and start to investigate.

Tests done so far:
-Remove all power cables from anything not needed - No change
- Remove RAM - Right BIOS beep code appears - restart happens
- Remove Graphics Card + Sound card - bios beep code again, no change
- Remove motherboard from case (in case of a short) and power up - no change
- Clear CMOS - no change
- Plug in my old PSU (only 20pin ATX / 4pin ATX cables rather than 24/8), but, the same problem occurs
- Plug the new PSU into my old gear - runs for 30 seconds (wasn't plugged to a screen, just the CPU fan wirring)
- Change back to the default intel fan - no change
- Take out the 8pin ATX cable for the motherboard - it doesn't exhibit the problem
- Put in the 4 pin ATX connector rather than 8 pin - problem returns

So at this point I have a motherboard plugging into a PSU where if I put any power into the smaller ATX power socket (aka the one near the CPU) it turns itself off after 10 seconds.

My suspicion is therefore that my motherboard is broken?
Or, would this look like a CPU problem instead?
Also, is that power socket definitely needed, are we on an either/or question here, its been a while since I made a PC but my last one used both (and i assume since I can it is better to use 8 rather than 4 pins for this)?

If anyone has any advice or further tests to recommend I'd be delighted to listen as otherwise I'm going to have to wait 2-3weeks for a return to happen, which is a real pain and I'd love to not have to do it!

Thanks in advance for any help you can give

 

[g-paw]

Really sounds like the FSU isn't fully seated. I'd clean the old paste off the CPU and HSF, use rubbing alcohol and a coffee filter, and apply a dab of new thermal paste. This has been the solution every time I've run into this problem.

 

[Daredevil_8]

I know this seems pretty obvious, but it happens...Double check that you have the pins on the CPU in the right spot and double check that it's seating properly when you lock it in. Doesn't sound like a PSU problem.

 

[Jdm240sx]

somethings to keep in mind

- bad board
- bent cpu pins
- motherboard beeps (refer to ur manual for the beeping code)
- Psu might be to weak you have a lot going on that system buddy
- reapply ur thermal compound (73 degrees WTF? talk about pc melt down)

if you checked all those i would rma everything! do the get go with new parts

 

[Belinda]

Whats the worrying thing here is that it was ok at first. The real thing is though what were the numerous other things in the case, i mean installing to drive G?? How many drives etc where in the case??
That said since it was ok i'd reset the BIOS and try starting the thing with minimal hardware before i tried reseating the CPU and heatsink etc.

 

[littlevoices]

Thanks to eveyone for their advice, based around what you all said I basically started again from scratch and as I write this windows is installing on the PC - I think it was a combination of RAM seating/CPU reseating that did it, but, at the end of the day I'm all happy now! (and the CPU is running a lot cooler now!)

So, thanks for your help - if it hadn't been for people saying try again then I might have just waited weeks for it to be RMA'd. As for the power worries, the corsair PSU should be fine for my system (they have a forum where you can interact with their technical support who give you advice on this). Windows was installing to Drive G as I had another hard disk with numerous partitions, and a plugged in external drive.

Thanks again

 

[g-paw]

Thanks to eveyone for their advice, based around what you all said I basically started again from scratch and as I write this windows is installing on the PC - I think it was a combination of RAM seating/CPU reseating that did it, but, at the end of the day I'm all happy now! (and the CPU is running a lot cooler now!)

So, thanks for your help - if it hadn't been for people saying try again then I might have just waited weeks for it to be RMA'd. As for the power worries, the corsair PSU should be fine for my system (they have a forum where you can interact with their technical support who give you advice on this). Windows was installing to Drive G as I had another hard disk with numerous partitions, and a plugged in external drive.

Thanks again

IF you just started the install, i.e., you haven't done all the updates and installed and set up all your programs, I'd suggest you take all of the drives out of the case except the one you're installing the OS on. This will ensure it installs on the C drive, which is really where you want the OS. If you don't want to reinstall, for future reference always take out any extra drives before you install Windows. Keep in mind it is easy to confuse Windows and when it's installed on the C drive there is less chance of confusion

 

[goldragon_70]

Most likely your processor is overheating. Reseat hsf. Make sure you took plastic off the bottom.

they already did that before you posted.