Nerve shattering instability, And now what seems to be perma death

[steve6t6]

Well I just built my new PC, and I have inevitable problems.

All put together correctly, but when installing the windows XP Pro it falls down at random points and simply freezes, mainly at component registration phase before completion.

Then I ran Memtest to see if it was memory and I noticed that it thought I had CAS 4 ram, the ram is cas 3, so I went into the BIOS and set it to 3, then the system crashed after boot twice then simply stoped working all together. no lights, noises nothing, pulled the plug and put it back, still nothing, held the "power on" button then pressed it again, a run of lights flashes on the Mother board then go out in a flash and nothing continues on.

Im freaking out about the idea the MOBO or something is fragged but there was no POP or fizzle, is the not powering up a symptom that can be cured? why doesn't XP get past install? any thoughts are welcome, as im worn out and feeling very defeated.

Steve

System Spec:

HDD
Manufacturer : SAMSUNG
Product : 500GB S300 16MB 7200RPM

DVD
Manufacturer : SAMSUNG
Product : 20x SATA DVD-RW OEM Lightscrib

DDR RAM
Manufacturer : VALUERAM
Product : 2x1GB 400MHz DDR2 Non-ECC CL3

Graphics card
Manufacturer : MSI
Product : GeForce 8800GT 512MB PCIE DVI

Mother Board
Manufacturer : GIGABYTE
Product : S775 Intel P35 ATX DDR2 Audio

Processor
Manufacturer : INTEL
Product : Core2Duo E6550 S775 2.33ghz4mb

PSU
Manufacturer : OCZTECH
Product : StealthXStream 600W Active PFC

Not that its relavent but still a cool case
Manufacturer : ANTEC
Product : P180 EU PC Case Perf 1 Series

 

[badge]

In BIOS, increase RAM voltage to 2.0-2.1v for PC6400 DDR2 800MHz. RAM. Not 400MHz like you have listed. You might try using one DIMM in slot one to load the Windows OS. Then install the MB chipset drivers and the other 1 Gb DIMM.

 

[steve6t6]

The problem is in its current state it wont power up at all, so I can't get to the Bios. I wonder if by tweaking a setting I burned something out? Will removing the CMOS battery reset my BIOS so I can find out for sure if it's burned?

 

[badge]

Well, if it won't power up at all you have either damaged some of the hardware of you have a short. If you want to try resetting the CMOS, unplug the PSU, remove the battery and reset the CMOS jumper.

 

[steve6t6]

I have reset the CMOS jumper and its still dead, Must now assume either the Ram or the MOBO is dead, if someone here could definativly tell me which then it would make replacing it much easier. Cheers!