Can't seem to get my new build working please help...

[jmills1]

I've spent the past 36 hours trying to figure out what is causing the following problems on my new build. Ive read the sticky on boot problems and gone through every single thing i could on the internet to try to troubleshoot this before coming here to ask. The problems are as follows. I successfully installed everything on the motherboard and the motherboard into the case (I've gone back over this very carefully 3 times hoping i missed something but each time i put it back togather results in the same problem). The problem is ill get everything hooked up all my fines and lights and drives and all and ill be able to successfully boot up. So i ill go into the bios to change the boot order to my WinXP cd so that i can boot and reformat my HD and install a fresh copy of XP in order to upgrade to windows 7. The first problem arises when the computer goes to save and restart my bios changes... the computer saves the bios changes but instead of restarting it just shuts down completely. Then when i go to try to manually turn it back on the led for the power supply when light up for half a second and then just shut down... and i will be completely unable to start anything inless i leave it alone for 10-15minutes in which case i'm then able to boot it up again. When i do get it booted up after the wait i'm able to boot to the XP CD and reformat my HD... but when it goes to restart to install windows it does manage to actually reboot but then when it comes back it gives me a disc read error and tells me to ctrl alt dlt to restart... well this time when i restart it completely dies again and i have to leave it alone for another 15 minutes to get it to power back up... next i try formatting an external HD with my win xp boot cd and i make it slightly further but when the initial windows xp screen comes up it flashes a blue error message and makes me shut down.... im again unable to boot back up for another 15 minutes.... My only guess is that my PSU is just a lemon and i need to get another one... but considering the hassle of sending it back i wanted to know this was likely the problem before proceeding... my specs are as follows...

Roswell R-22-3-A MId Tower Case... Rocket Fish 550 Watt Power Supply... AMD II X4 620... Biostar A77AE3 Motherboard.. 60gig 7200rpm IDE HD pulled from a working dell... 22X Sony DVD-rw.. 2 gig DDR3 1066 RAM...

If Anyone has ANY ideas i would GREATLY appreciate it.

Thanks

 

[trekker1004]

Perhaps go and buy a $5 multimeter at Harbor Freight and test the power supply. That way you can see if it's the culprit or not. Just Google how to do it and be careful.

 

[jmills1]

what sounds like the culprit to you???

 

[jmills1]

if anyone has any ideas please let me know before i go wasting any more of my money... hell if you can give me some sort of definitive answer and it proves to be right ill send you 10 bucks on paypal... i;m about to pull my hair out here... i'm a recovering alcoholic and drug addict and ive been sober for two years but this damn computer is really making a bottle of johnny walker sound nice

 

[jmills1]

bump

 

[apache_lives]

TEST YOUR HARDWARE

 

[jmills1]

the ram, video card, hard drive, and dvd burner all seem to be in working order... the processor and motherboard are brand new retail products... when the computer will boot everything is correctly recognized in the bios... does the power supply sound like the problem??? i bought it second hand from an open box deal...

 

[pjmelect]

This is almost certainly a power supply issue, the symptoms look like those exhibited by an under rated power supply.

 

[jmills1]

thanks for the infomoration.. i'm going to fry's in the morning to pick up a new 380watt antec powersupply... i'm not running any serious video cards and my processor is only pulling 95watts so this should be adequate correct?

 

[jmills1]

anyone else have thoughts???

 

[JD13]

Did you make sure that the heat sink is properly installed? The CPU maybe over heating causing it to shutdown. 380 seems a bit light especially if you plan on doing any OC. Start up power is where computers need most of their power & like other appliances in your house require more juice to get them started.