First Build - System Keeps Rebooting

[bosoxfan82]

Hello

This is my very first computer build, so please be gentle, i couldnt find any threads specific to the issue that i am having so here goes.

i built it specifically so i could play games on higher settings, so this is my first experience with computer parts in general.

after putting everthing together and connected correctly, my issue is that the computer will not stop rebooting. during windows installation it would restart almost at the very beginning everytime (barely making it past the windows starting up animation). A friend of mine was able to run windows on it through something called "system prep" (once again i'm a novice), and it would load windows for only a couple of minutes and then restart. since then i've tried installing windows on my own and its same old story, keeps rebooting during installation.

at first i thought it might be an issue with my power supply, but another friend of mine brought over one that was much better than the one i got and still same issue.

the cpu is not overheating, ive checked the temp in bios immediately after a reboot, and i've also felt around the cpu error and there's no heat to be at all concerned about.

at this point i'm thinking that i have some type of compatibility issue with my motherboard and cpu, the cpu is supposed to be compatible with my mobo according to asus, and the bios that comes stock with it is also supposed to be compatible according to amd (bios was also updated when my friend was able to get windows going). Ive seen that there can be a wattage issue between the mobo and cpu which may cause reboot, but i was unable to find anything specific to my hardware.

i'd really like to pinpoint what the issue is, its been almost a week and still no pc running, also i live in a small town and the computer store is about an hour away for me to return/exchange something, so i dont want to go all the way over there and have to go back again.

any help would be greatly appreciated...here is the list of hardware im running...

Case: NZXT Lexa S
CPU: AMD FX 6100
Motherboard: Asus M5A78L-M LX Plus
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 550ti
Power Supply: Diablotek UL Series 575 Watt PSU
Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar Blue 160 GB
CD/DVD Drive: MSI 24x DVDRW Drive
Memory: PNY MD8192KD3-1600-X9 XLR8 4GB x2
CPU Fan: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus

 

[Raiddinn]

As much as you have denied the possibility, it sounds like heat to me.

Are you sure that the Hyper 212 is attached correctly?

Are you sure the past is applied correctly?

It sounds strangely like the heat from the CPU isn't being transferred to the heat sink. That would cause the heat on the processor to spiral upwards till it shut itself down.

If you can get as far as booting, it doesn't sound like the processor, motherboard, RAM, or video card are non functional. If they were you would probably either not even get the option of booting or you would often be able to get fully into windows, one of the two.

Because the time is consistently between those two, it sounds to me like the PSU is starting out cool and then increasing until it gets too high.

That is just how it sounds based on what you told me so far.

Try going over this article and then maybe try reapplying the paste and installing the cooler again.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/cooling-air-pressure-heatsink,3058.html

 

[cdiscoll2012]

if its in a boot loop it may not be recognizing your hdd i had the same problem with a computer of mine it might be either the drive was incorrectly partitioned or the bios is wrong(however you said you already ruled this out).

 

[willard]

I'm inclined to believe this is heat related, despite what you may think. The CPU can dissipate a surprising amount of heat between the time you shut it down and the time you get into the BIOS. What's more, sitting in the BIOS is just about the lightest load you can put on the processor.

It would help a great deal if you posted the temperatures you observed in the BIOS. That fan should be able to keep your processor in the 30s at the BIOS screen with ease. If you're in the 40s or higher, you probably want to reseat the cooler and replace the thermal paste anyway, even if it's not the cause of your issues.

 

[bosoxfan82]

its staying in the 30's while in the bios, and im checking this immediately after it reboots to get as close an assessment as to what the temp is that might have made it reboot. i'd also read that cpu heat will cause a pc to shut down and not reboot, is that incorrect?....in regards to the fan ive tried with both fans, stock fan and the hyper 212, both fans when i pull them off the cpu i actually have to give them a "tug" so to speak...so i'm assuming that the thermal paste is making good contact between the fan and cpu...is the wattage issue between the cpu and motherboard not even a possibility at this point?

 

[willard]

Hrmm, those temps sound fine, and yes, there should be some resistance when you pull the heatsink off the CPU. One last thing that might cause a heat issue, though. You said that you tried both fans. Did you scrape off the old thermal compound and replace it from both the CPU and heatsink after swapping them out? Reusing old paste can cause serious heat issues.

If you used fresh paste, I'm ready to call this not a heat issue.

 

[bosoxfan82]

its been cleaned each time and new paste applied...now i wont say it was cleaned to the point that ive signed up for a white glove test...but well enough...also ive been having this issue since first boot...from when i first installed the fan with its first coat of thermal paste...

btw thanks for all the help so far guys...

 

[clarkjd]

You might try looking at your PSU..Diablotek is NOT one of the better PSU brands out there. and if it won't deliver its rated output, it could cause issues. I recommend swapping it out for a PSU from Corsair, Seasonic, Enermax, Antec, PCP&C, or even XFX. something int the 550-650- watt range

 

[bosoxfan82]

i also thought it was the psu...but then a friend brought over antec 650 and same exact thing is happening...

 

[Raiddinn]

Clarkjd - XFX PSUs are all made by Seasonic, which makes them more reliable as a brand than Antec, Corsair, and OCZ (acquired PC Power and Cooling).

Enermax is good, but they mostly stick to the 900w+ space whereas XFX sticks to 850w or less so they don't really compete with each other.

Bosoxfan82 - Paste can be applied incorrectly. That is why I wanted you to read the article. If there is some on there that isn't good enough, it has to be on there right. I would appreciate it if you would do what I asked and confirm its done. It would very much help me help you.

 

[clarkjd]

Raiddinn - a lot of the Corsair PSUs are also made by Seasonic...

 

[Soda-88]

try setting vcore to auto and reduce the cpu multiplier to as low as it goes and run it at some abysmal speed, see if it still reboots

if it runs fine like that you might have faulty mosfets on motherboard

also try disabling individual cores on cpu if you can

 

[Raiddinn]

Clarkjd - I do realize that, trust me.

XFX PSUs are never a bad choice for a system.

That isn't something you can say for Antec or Corsair and definitely not for OCZ. If you want to get one of these, you must do research to ensure you aren't getting a bad PSU.

Why go through all the effort to figure out if a PSU is worth putting in a computer when there is a perfectly good option available that requires no research?

 

[bosoxfan82]

ill look over the article on applying the paste with the cpu/fan when i get home from work...regarding the settings for the cpu, it's been slowed down as much as possible and ive disabled the extra cores as well...still no go...

 

[bosoxfan82]

does anyone think that taking everything apart and starting over from scratch will help any?

 

[Raiddinn]

It could be a bad motherboard. I read some reviews on it and 31% of Newegg reviews give it 1 star. That is a percentage that I am not very comfortable with.

One of the Asus customer service people went around responding to all the 1 star ratings on newegg and on one of them they said that this board doesn't OC well at all, that it can't handle more than regular voltage levels very well.

Do any of your friends have AM3+ motherboards? If so, do you think you could talk one of them into trying your processor in their board?

 

[bgrt]

If you're seeing the Windows animation and all that, it is possibly a software issue. While Windows is loading drivers during installation, it could have loaded something incompatible, which would cause a reboot. Try downloading a copy of Ubuntu, make a Live CD on a USB drive or a normal CD-R, then run that. Running a live CD also eliminates the hard drive as a cause of the problem.

I would have also said heat at first but heat on the CPU would typically cause a shut down rather than a reboot. Unstable PSU is really the only common hardware problem that causes reboots but this possibility seems to have been eliminated. Less likely is a motherboard that's not providing stable voltages, but that's pretty uncommon. I'd try to look at it as a software issue here.

 

[bosoxfan82]

ill try that...what would i do if ubuntu works?...give up on windows?

 

[Raiddinn]

Gaming is a lot better on Windows, so it wouldn't pay to give up on it, even if Ubuntu works. Ubuntu is a great OS, but not such a great gaming one.

Wine is a program that lets Windows games be played on Ubuntu by converting direct x calls into OpenGL calls which it can handle, but performance does drop considerably because of this.

Anyway, if Ubuntu did work, it wouldn't help you too much. Linux is quite tolerant of faulty hardware (unlike Windows) so if you did have a faulty hardware device, Ubuntu might not even notice. You would likely have performance degradation while using that device, but you would have to be able to "feel" that.

Basically, if Ubuntu Linux did work, you still couldn't tell the difference between a hardware or software problem.

It seems to pretty clearly be a hardware problem to me, since you can't even install Windows correctly the regular way, so I am not real sure how installing Ubuntu would even help at this moment.

It looks to me like you just need to try to narrow down which hardware device is failing.

You pretty much ruled out the PSU already which was definitely a good idea.

That just leaves a ton of other hardware devices.

Such is why I asked if there was any potential for you to try your processor in other people's boards.

Another thing you could try is to remove the video card and try to use the graphics chip that is installed in the motherboard. If you did this and it quit crashing then you would probably need to replace the video card.

 

[bgrt]

I don't think it's clear that it's a hardware issue. I've had Windows installations bomb out on several hardware configurations due to missing or incompatible drivers on the Windows disc. For example, Win XP 64 install bombed on a laptop because it was missing some Intel SATA drivers, which was really lame. I forgot when's the last time a Win 7 installation blew up though but it has in the past.

But I would agree to not stay on Ubuntu. It's more of a test. Linux, like any other OS will crash on bad hardware.

 

[Raiddinn]

Linux will sometimes crash with bad hardware, sometimes not.

It is very rare to fail a Windows installation if you have good hardware.

 

[bosoxfan82]

ok...sorry for the late response...but ive been busy with work and family stuff...so today i found some time to work on the pc...

Raiddinn...
i looked over the article...i cleaned off both the cpu and the fan base with rubbing alcohol pretty thoroughly...reapplied the correct amount of thermal paste in the same fashion shown in the article...

still same exact problem...

i also got a new windows disc and that one boots a little differently...but again same exact issue, reboots right at the beginning of the installation...

i also once again checked the cpu temp no less than 15-20 seconds after the reboots...each time its sitting at 32 degrees celsius...

at this point...i can only assume the last thing for me to try is replacing my motherboard...

 

[Raiddinn]

Are you sure there is nobody with a compatible motherboard that you know?

No friends? No family members?

I would hate to see you spend $100 replacing the wrong thing.

 

[bosoxfan82]

yeah...positive...i wish i did...i guess im going to head to compusa at the end of this week and try to get a new motherboard...any recommendations for that? the Asus M5A78L-M LX Plus i got was only 59 bucks...im willing to spend another 50 bucks or so if it'll get this thing up and running...

 

[Raiddinn]

As much as I hate to say it, you may want to take it to a computer store and have them try to test and see what is wrong with it.

At this point I can't guarantee that it is the motherboard.

If you know a place that is very lenient on returns I can tell you some parts you can try and you can take it back if it doesn't fix your problem, but I don't think there are very many places like that.

- Edit - Clarity