So, I just upgraded my system from some black Friday Deals to:
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 @ 2.4 Ghz
ECS 671T-M Motherboard @ 1066Mhz
2X1GB Corsair XMS2-DDR2-667Mhz
Ati Radeon HD2600XT 512 MB DDR2 (PCIe, no external connector)


Kept my old stuff.
Antec Truepower 550 Watt (With 20-pin Connector)
2XSATA 10,000 RPM Western Digital Raptor I's, striped.
16X DVD-ROM
52X CD-Burner
Creative Soundblaster Audigy 2 (PCI)
ATA/133 IDE Controller Card for the CD-ROMs (PCI)
2X Maxtor drives, one's 40GB the other's 320GB
USB mouse
USB Keyboard
USB Webcam (only plugged in when in use)
USB Gamepad (Only plugged in when in use)

I have 1 80MM LED Casefan
1 120 MM Casefan
and 4 80MM casefans


My question is thus: When I try to start a full-screen 3D app my monitor signal goes dead, it turns black and the power light on it flashes indicating no signal.
Half the time when I start up or reboot my PC, it doesn't initialize the monitor and I have to reboot until it starts working, it doesn't even show me the BIOS when it doesn't initialize.
Now, in the instructions, it said that using a 20-pin connector instead of a 24-pin could cause some instability.
Could this be causing it?
Should I upgrade to another PSU?
Could I get by with a 20-to-25-pin power adapter?
I honestly don't know, my last self-build PC was the 3200+ 32-bit Athlon XP generation, I figured 550 Watts would be more than enough to run this new stuff, I got.
There's a 700Watt OCZ PSU up for $130 right now including shipping I was eying.
Any advice?

On the extreme PSU Cal, thats about 328W on 100% load.

Thing is, how balanced the PSU has amps on the rails (3.3/5/12v).

One other question I have, did you do a fresh install of XP when you upgraded? Looks like the MB was changed out, just hard to say if it could be software related, rather then hardware.

But with any new build, its usually best to get a new PSU.

Sorry, but that ecs board doesn't even support quad core cpus. At least it runs. I posted the black friday special, and warned people to change boards. Fry's dumps slow selling boards that sometimes aren't even rated for the cpu in the combo special. The antec 550w should work ok; I would try a different motherboard first. Newegg and mwave have some open box boards that should work fine; just try to match the ports to your current backplate; most boards don't come with one. I would go with a p35 board by asus, abit, or gigabyte.

Gawd... If he brought that as a combo deal, I'd be disappointed. Ya, I found the CPU support on that particular MB:

CPU Support Model: 671T-M / BIOS : 070621

Don't see any quad support on there for him. So that would be one reason that system is having problems.

hardware limitation problem.

Try replacing the user...aw... your monitor might not support such high resolution.

hardware limitation problem.

Try replacing the user...aw... your monitor might not support such high resolution.

Yeah, luckilly the board still falls under their return policy.
Usually before I upgrade I do more research than is healthy, but with Finals this week and working two jobs just to get buy, I impulse-bought what looked like a great deal just so I could stay more modern and play Bioshock, since the ailing R9800Pro 128 MB I had before couldn't even render it, even as I was buying it, my next plan was to save up and buy a better Mainboard and RAM, and a second VGA for Crossfire.
Things are always on special for a reason, though, lol: Got a Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3P since I've always had more luck with them then Abit or Asus.

So, I had kind of a funky install of my 7.11 ATI Catalysts with some Dot Net 2.0 Framework issues (Don't get me started...) and the drivers never installing right, and there's an issue with the Omega's and PCIe right now that wouldn't let me test those out, I couldn't even get my system to load to desktop without a crash until I ran drivercleaner and got back to 7.4's. But the CCC still never functioned correctly.

Since I had some free time yesterday I reformatted and tried again, this time installing the Catalysts after everything else, and every possible Windows XP update.

And I gamed all yesterday without a hitch, hours of Bioshock, HL2: Episode 2, Supreme Commander, I even broke out Doom3 and maxed everything just to see what it was like, I played with both high performance and high quality settings on each game for hours at each game without any problems.

So, then I got brave and downloaded BOINC and started running World Community Grid cancer research stuff. Had all 4 cores going 100% all night, I ran 4 different units simultaneously, completed and submitted them. According to Windows Task Manager all four cores were being utilized to 100%, and at various stages when I was multi-tasking they showed differing levels of usage.

So then I ask why a motherboard that doesn't support quad-cores is giving me all that signs that it is supporting quad cores? Or is at least stable enough to do the sorts of things I do with it.

Heh, that was one of my questions, wondering if you did a fresh install of XP, rather then just trying to run your old installation with the new hardware. So I'm guessing you didn't do a fresh install to begin with.

The website doesn't show (or I don't see official support) support for quad, but it does support dual cores. And that quad is basically 2 C2D glued together. So I guess your lucky its running fine for now.

Try running Orthos to see if it can run for at least 6 hours without errors.

Edit:

The only other thing I can think of is, ECS perhaps hasn't bothered updating the CPU page.

Are you using an old monitor?
The monitor may have problems of it's own.

Thats an underpowered PSU lol - running 4 HDDs for a start (2 of em 10000RPM) - i had exactly same problem once - start 3D - blank screen - upgraded PSU... All fine...

snkboarder last post pretty much says his system is working fine now.. After a fresh install. He's not really maxing out his total power, though he didn't mention the amps for all the rails (to figure out the balance of rated power), which was my other question.

Owell... as long as it werks for him. Just hard to say for how long. But any good/great PSU can go poof at any time, depending on the circumstances or even power spikes/surges.

Actually, that was the first thing I did.
I reformat and reinstall XP every 3 months religiously, and everytime I make a major hardware change, such as a new VGA or mainboard.

It would be extremely foolhardy to take the XP install of an AMD/Nvidia installation and run it with Intel/ATi parts.

Basically what happened was I tried installing the Catalysts without installing the Dot Net 2.0 framework, and I wasn't able to recover from whatever the failed install did. That was my mistake, so the next time I reformatted (Twice in one week...yucky) I made sure to install Dot Net 1.1, 2.0. 3.0 and all patches/updates/security fixes possible. Since then I haven't had a single problem. So if you're going to blame anything, blame Dot Not and me not knowing I needed it for ATi drivers, I love to format, though.
Today I performed fresh Vista/Slackware 12.0 installs on some of my other freshly formatted hard drives, and no problems with anything really. Now I have my tri-boot system, so I can run whatever I want, and no worries.

Ya, I had my bad exerience with Net Framework 1.1, 2.0. When that messes up, its really a big headache to mess with. That was one of the reasons why I stayed away from ATI drivers/products.

Great to hear its running great though. Perhaps ECS just doesn't want to update their webpage on support.

Well, Grimmy, I appreciate your Candor, certainly. I *almost* bought Nvidia this time around. I haven't had an Nvidia card since my GeForce2 and it gave me a lot of headaches, when I switched to my Radeon 9800 things were smooth sailing for the most part, but that was before the Dot Net days in their drivers, you could still get a regular old-fashioned control panel.
One of the first things I did was upgrade my motherboard's Bios, though it was kind of vague. On the webpage it just said "Added CPU Support", so I figured, it couldn't hurt, (Though I know it can, from prior experiences), and since then it's recognized my four cores. Maybe its' Core 2 Quad Support...or maybe for whatever reason the motherboard is able to support them natively from the LGA 775 Socket.