New PC build having massive problems please help!

[cwil131]

Hi all,

Not sure if this is the right board to ask at, feel free to redirect me! This is not my first pc build, I build them quite frequently at work but this one at home is giving me ridiculous amounts of trouble here are the stats:

Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P Motherboard (rev. 1.6)
Intel Quad q6600
2 gig G Skill ddr2 ram
2 gig Kingston ddr2 ram
Coolmax CU-700B 700W ATX power supply
NVIDIA 460 GTX

And here are the problems I'm having
1. Power supply: I know the coolmax is not a great one but it's the only power supply I could find with ALL 24 pins, apparently the newer ATX revisions did away with pin 20, the -5v pin, which my mobo apparently needs to work. I also bought a nicer Thermaltake toughpower 750w but this only had 23 pins and wouldn't boot up half the time. Does anyone know of any nicer power supplies that would work? Preferably at least 700 watts...And yes, the psu is set on American voltage...

2. Hard drive, I first bought a pair of OCZ vertex 60g SSDs. I was going to put one in my computer and one in my parents' (which of course works fine). I couldn't get it to show up in either the bios or windows installation screen so I tried it in my parents machine and it didn't show up either. I took out their drive and tried it in mine and it worked fine. Did I just get a bad drive or did my machine somehow kill it?

3. Hard drive 2, after my SSD wouldn't work I put an older Sata 500g HDD in the machine and installed Windows 7 last night. This worked fine until this morning. I went to turn it on and the drive wouldn't spin up. I took it and put it in my other computer and it didn't spin up either. Did it coincidentally die or did something kill it?

4. CD Drive, used a Sata CD drive to install windows on my parents' machine, hooked it up to mine and it suddenly wouldn't turn on. Took it back to parents' machine and it still wouldn't turn on. Coincidence...or murder?

5. CPU temp, reads like 92 celsius, I have the stock fan and a decent amount of thermal paste and good contact here. Not sure if this is some kind of read error or this is contributing to my problem. Earlier when I was trying to get the bios to recognize the SSD, the machine would turn off randomly, presumably from CPU overheating? The rest of the machine is around 30 Celsius and the whole thing is laid out on my wooden table so its getting plenty of air...

So there you have it, either my power supply is killing everything it touches, the mobo is somehow messing things up or I just happen to have 3 components fail independently on the same day...any thoughts?

 

[WR2]

Hello cwil131;

I'd looked in several times hoping I'd get an idea on what's going on. Hasn't quite happened yet but I'll give you topic a bump.

How did you determine your P45 MB needed a -5V supply?

I don't see how the insanely high CPU temps could be killing off your other parts.
That's 'usually' the job of a bad PSU.

But this Coolmax CU-700B is: ATX 12V v2.2 / EPS12V v2.91 is not an old style PSU. This one is suitable for any modern Sandy Bridge build. And does not have a -5V supply.
It's also should be a good match for the Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P P45 motherboard which is EPS12V. And Rev 1.6 is the most recent version.

How did you happen to get your hands on that motherboard?


Here is an old school ATX PSU with a -5V supply Athena Power AP-P4ATX35 350W ATX Power Supply

 

[cwil131]

It turns out the heatsync on the processor wasn't entirely secured so that mitigates the heating issue, but I'm still not sure what killed all those parts. The board is 2008 or 2009 and according to the wiki on ATX power supplies, the -5v pin was removed as of rev 1.3 in 2003. I even have an older Asus p5b board which apparently was using a power supply without the -5v pin. With all of the parts dying though it makes me hesitant to keep trying more power supplies though.

According to this review of a very similar power supply on new egg..

Cons: Does not work, cpu fan will not come on. Called tech support was told it will not work on older mothers boards mine is one year old GA EP-45UD3P they said if my old power supply has one pin missing on the 24 pin which mine does this Thermaltake will not work something about not having a 5 volt pin. Check your 24 pin connector before you buy.

Which is why I thought I may try a different one...As a side note, I also called coolermaster (owned by antec) about a power supply for the p5b and they told me I'd NEED an older version without the -5v...Then I found one some other forum somewhere someone with the same power thermaltake power supply and same board that works fine. I tested all of the in the thermaltake and got the correct voltage readings, I'm just curious now how all those drives died and why the machine shuts off randomly. Would that just be a motherboard issue?

 

[WR2]

How did you acquire that motherboard? What as the source of supply?

It might be time to take a closer look at that motherboard.
Use a bright light and look at both sides for signs of any damage or any other thing that looks suspect.

 

[cwil131]

Everything looked ok, but still wouldn't stay powered on. Im trying a new set of parts now:

AMD 1090T
Gigabyte GAFXA-UD5
GTX460
GSkill 1600 DDR3 Ram
Corsair 750W supply

now I can't get the video to consistently boot, tried same mobo with a different card and still no luck, is this a mobo problem?