PC Starts/Stops Continously (psu,fans) MB Light is green.

[will759227]

Hello, i bought a new case and i decided to move my system from what case to the other. I am getting the following problem


I have taken the motherboard out of the case to troublshoot.

#1 PSU works fine, i shorted the green/black pin + a case fan and the thing runs fine.
2. the motherboard is out of the system now and onto a piece of cardboard.

Connected is the proper connectors from the PSU, The computer turns on for 1 second both PSU and CPU cooler fan pops on for a split second and then shuts off about 3 seconds later, it does it again, motherboard light is green.


Things i've tried
1 stick of ram
fan off the cpu and the cpu never gets warm during these continual start and stop routine of the fans/psu
CPU out off the motherboard, same problem happens whether CPU is on the board or not.
disconnected fan from the motherboard.... same thing, psu flips on and then off continously.

I have tested the psu by shorting as i said earlier and it stays on fine and runs the case fan fine. Ths PSU is the FATAL1TY 550w...

The CPU is a i3
During these tests nothing is connected to the PSU but the mb connectors and the fan from the cpu...
This is the p7 h55 m pro micro asus board.

 

[TomTsunami]

It could be that your heatsink/fan is not properly attached to your CPU. If you don't have a proper thermal connection with a compound, the CPU can overheat in seconds. In fact, if you try booting a system without a heatsink, you are almost guaranteed that you will overheat the CPU in a very short amount of time.

 

[jsc]

Work systematically through our standard checklist and troubleshooting thread:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/261145-31-read-posting-boot-problems
I mean work through, not just read over it. We spent a lot of time on this. It should find most of the problems.

If not, continue.

I have tested the following beep patterns on Gigabyte, eVGA, and ECS motherboards. Other BIOS' may be different.

Breadboard - that will help isolate any kind of case problem you might have.
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/262730-31-breadboarding

Breadboard with just motherboard, CPU & HSF, case speaker, and PSU.

Make sure you plug the CPU power cable in. The system will not boot without it.

I always breadboard a new build. It takes only a few minutes, and you know you are putting good parts in the case once you are finished.

You can turn on the PC by momentarily shorting the two pins that the case power switch goes to. You should hear a series of long, single beeps indicating memory problems. Silence indicates a problem with (in most likely order) the PSU, motherboard, or CPU. Remember, at this time, you do not have a graphics card installed so the load on your PSU will be reduced.

If no beeps:
Running fans and drives and motherboard LED's do not necessarily indicate a good PSU. In the absence of a single short beep, they also do not indicate that the system is booting.

At this point, you can sort of check the PSU. Try to borrow a known good PSU of around 550 - 600 watts. That will power just about any system with a single GPU. If you cannot do that, use a DMM to measure the voltages. Measure between the colored wires and either chassis ground or the black wires. Yellow wires should be 12 volts. Red wires: +5 volts, orange wires: +3.3 volts, blue wire : -12 volts, violet wire: 5 volts always on. Tolerances are +/- 5% except for the -12 volts which is +/- 10%.

The gray wire is really important. It should go from 0 to +5 volts when you turn the PSU on with the case switch. CPU needs this signal to boot.

You can turn on the PSU by completely disconnecting the PSU and using a paperclip or jumper wire to short the green wire to one of the neighboring black wires.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FWXgQSokF4&feature=youtube_gdata

A way that might be easier is to use the main power plug. Working from the back of the plug where the wires come out, use a bare paperclip to short between the green wire and one of the neighboring black wires. That will do the same thing with an installed PSU. It is also an easy way to bypass a questionable case power switch.

This checks the PSU under no load conditions, so it is not completely reliable. But if it can not pass this, it is dead. Then repeat the checks with the PSU plugged into the computer to put a load on the PSU.

If the system beeps:
If it looks like the PSU is good, install a memory stick. Boot. Beep pattern should change to one long and several short beeps indicating a missing graphics card.

Silence, long single beeps, or series of short beeps indicate a problem with the memory. If you get short beeps verify that the memory is in the appropriate motherboard slots.

Insert the video card and connect any necessary PCIe power connectors. Boot. At this point, the system should POST successfully (a single short beep). Notice that you do not need keyboard, mouse, monitor, or drives to successfully POST.
At this point, if the system doesn't work, it's either the video card or an inadequate PSU. Or rarely - the motherboard's PCIe interface.

Now start connecting the rest of the devices starting with the monitor, then keyboard and mouse, then the rest of the devices, testing after each step. It's possible that you can pass the POST with a defective video card. The POST routines can only check the video interface. It cannot check the internal parts of the video card.