Newly Built Computer Won't Stay On

wrote in message
ups.com...

Robert Heiling wrote:
wrote:

OSbandito wrote:
Robert Heiling wrote:

Since nobody else has mentioned it, I'll toss this out.
Double-check your wiring job in regard to the power-on and reset
buttons and motherboard pins. Your magic 4 second delay is exactly
the effect you would get if power-off were being held down.



Bob Good answer--hitting the basics first. But you should warn him:
if he got his wires crossed, he will have to remove his shorts.

Well, I've tried reversing the power on wires, removing the reset
wires,

I wouldn't be comfortable with what you describe. Why don't you simply
remove
all connections to those 10 sets of pins -LED, Reset, Speaker, Power -
All of
them! Then briefly short the Power pins. If the behavior is still the
same, then
you've ruled those out.

removing and replacing the heat sink/fan, and moving the memory
to a different slot, and there has been no change. I don't have spare
mbs, memory, or PSUs lying around, so I guess I'll go buy a power
supply first, and try that.

Thanks for the advice, and keep it coming.

But if it comes on and stays on, you'll know where to look for one
problem.

Bob

I just located an older 20 pin PSU in my basement, but my mb needs a 24
pin. Is there any way to use this old PSU, just to see if it fixes the
problem before I buy a new one?


Do you mean something like this?

http://www.xpcgear.com/20to24pinatx.html

But check to see if that old PS you found in the basement would have
enough watts to power up your board if you had an adapter to fit it 20 to
24.
--
Jan Alter

or

It is true, LED connectors being reversed polarity wouldn't
in itself cause this, but wrong connector block wiring,
particularly to one of the OEM or (more elaborate new cases
with several function circuit boards in front) other cases
could conceivably route LED or other logical connections
where they shouldn't be. Thus, the safest bet is to unplug
all such wiring and turn system on by momentarily shorting
the two power-on pins together with a metallic object.

Just tried that - didn't work. One thing seems odd to me. Even though
I had the speaker wire off, I still heard the one long beep when I
switched on the power.

Do you mean something like this?

http://www.xpcgear.com/20to24pinatx.html

But check to see if that old PS you found in the basement would have
enough watts to power up your board if you had an adapter to fit it 20 to
24.
--
Jan Alter

or


It's a 200 W PSU, but it should be enough to power the board with ease,
right? I don't think I even have to hook up the drives to see if this
fixes the problem.

CPU - AMD|A64 X2 3800+ AM2 2x512K R

If the PS is decent I would be thinking at minimum of 300 w to power the rig
with the processor you have. I'd be dubious that you could make a reliable
test even if you had a 20 to 24 pin adapter with a 200 w PS. You wouldn't
have to hook up any drives just as long as you have a cpu, RAM, and video
card on the mb. Additionally the old PS would have to have a squarish 4 pin
cpu plug that fits to the mb. Does it have one? Older ATX PSs don't
--
Jan Alter

or

wrote in message
ps.com...
Do you mean something like this?

http://www.xpcgear.com/20to24pinatx.html

But check to see if that old PS you found in the basement would have
enough watts to power up your board if you had an adapter to fit it 20 to
24.
--
Jan Alter

or


It's a 200 W PSU, but it should be enough to power the board with ease,
right? I don't think I even have to hook up the drives to see if this
fixes the problem.

Jan Alter wrote:
CPU - AMD|A64 X2 3800+ AM2 2x512K R

If the PS is decent I would be thinking at minimum of 300 w to power the rig
with the processor you have. I'd be dubious that you could make a reliable
test even if you had a 20 to 24 pin adapter with a 200 w PS. You wouldn't
have to hook up any drives just as long as you have a cpu, RAM, and video
card on the mb. Additionally the old PS would have to have a squarish 4 pin
cpu plug that fits to the mb. Does it have one? Older ATX PSs don't
--
Jan Alter

Actually, after thinking about it for a bit, I'm just going to go out
and buy a PSU and try it. If it doesn't solve the problem, I can
return it. As you say, I want a reliable test, and dinking around with
an old 200 Watt PSU with adaptor doesn't neccessarily give me a good
test. I'll post the results of the PSU switch later today.

thanks,

Jack

wrote:
Jan Alter wrote:
CPU - AMD|A64 X2 3800+ AM2 2x512K R

If the PS is decent I would be thinking at minimum of 300 w to power the rig
with the processor you have. I'd be dubious that you could make a reliable
test even if you had a 20 to 24 pin adapter with a 200 w PS. You wouldn't
have to hook up any drives just as long as you have a cpu, RAM, and video
card on the mb. Additionally the old PS would have to have a squarish 4 pin
cpu plug that fits to the mb. Does it have one? Older ATX PSs don't
--
Jan Alter

Actually, after thinking about it for a bit, I'm just going to go out
and buy a PSU and try it. If it doesn't solve the problem, I can
return it. As you say, I want a reliable test, and dinking around with
an old 200 Watt PSU with adaptor doesn't neccessarily give me a good
test. I'll post the results of the PSU switch later today.


I just put in a new PSU, an Antec SmartPower 2.0 400 Watt, and the same
thing happens, except that now I don't hear the beep. Maybe that means
the beep was coming from the fan speed monitoring unit on the original
PSU? Anyway, any thoughts on what I ought to do next - besides return
the PSU I just bought.

Jack
thanks,

Jack

wrote in message ups.com...

Robert Heiling wrote:
wrote:

OSbandito wrote:
Robert Heiling wrote:

Since nobody else has mentioned it, I'll toss this out. Double-check your wiring job in
regard to the power-on and reset buttons and motherboard pins. Your magic 4 second delay is exactly
the effect you would get if power-off were being held down.



Bob Good answer--hitting the basics first. But you should warn him:
if he got his wires crossed, he will have to remove his shorts.

Well, I've tried reversing the power on wires, removing the reset
wires,

I wouldn't be comfortable with what you describe. Why don't you simply remove
all connections to those 10 sets of pins -LED, Reset, Speaker, Power - All of
them! Then briefly short the Power pins. If the behavior is still the same, then
you've ruled those out.

removing and replacing the heat sink/fan, and moving the memory
to a different slot, and there has been no change. I don't have spare
mbs, memory, or PSUs lying around, so I guess I'll go buy a power
supply first, and try that.

Thanks for the advice, and keep it coming.

But if it comes on and stays on, you'll know where to look for one problem.

Bob

I just located an older 20 pin PSU in my basement, but my mb needs a 24
pin. Is there any way to use this old PSU, just to see if it fixes the
problem before I buy a new one?


NOOOOOOOOO you cannot skimp on the supply. That supply is most likely a 200w / 300w and is going to
fall way short of supplying enough power.

wrote in message ups.com...

Jan Alter wrote:
CPU - AMD|A64 X2 3800+ AM2 2x512K R

If the PS is decent I would be thinking at minimum of 300 w to power the rig
with the processor you have. I'd be dubious that you could make a reliable
test even if you had a 20 to 24 pin adapter with a 200 w PS. You wouldn't
have to hook up any drives just as long as you have a cpu, RAM, and video
card on the mb. Additionally the old PS would have to have a squarish 4 pin
cpu plug that fits to the mb. Does it have one? Older ATX PSs don't
--
Jan Alter

Actually, after thinking about it for a bit, I'm just going to go out
and buy a PSU and try it. If it doesn't solve the problem, I can
return it. As you say, I want a reliable test, and dinking around with
an old 200 Watt PSU with adaptor doesn't neccessarily give me a good
test. I'll post the results of the PSU switch later today.

thanks,


VERY good , disregard my other post

wrote in message ups.com...

wrote:
Jan Alter wrote:
CPU - AMD|A64 X2 3800+ AM2 2x512K R

If the PS is decent I would be thinking at minimum of 300 w to power the rig
with the processor you have. I'd be dubious that you could make a reliable
test even if you had a 20 to 24 pin adapter with a 200 w PS. You wouldn't
have to hook up any drives just as long as you have a cpu, RAM, and video
card on the mb. Additionally the old PS would have to have a squarish 4 pin
cpu plug that fits to the mb. Does it have one? Older ATX PSs don't
--
Jan Alter

Actually, after thinking about it for a bit, I'm just going to go out
and buy a PSU and try it. If it doesn't solve the problem, I can
return it. As you say, I want a reliable test, and dinking around with
an old 200 Watt PSU with adaptor doesn't neccessarily give me a good
test. I'll post the results of the PSU switch later today.


I just put in a new PSU, an Antec SmartPower 2.0 400 Watt, and the same
thing happens, except that now I don't hear the beep. Maybe that means
the beep was coming from the fan speed monitoring unit on the original
PSU? Anyway, any thoughts on what I ought to do next - besides return
the PSU I just bought.

Jack
thanks,

Jack


im back to the heatsink and fan assembly. if the sink is on 180 defgrees round there will be a gap
between the sink and the cpu.

wrote in message
ups.com...

wrote:
Jan Alter wrote:
CPU - AMD|A64 X2 3800+ AM2 2x512K R

If the PS is decent I would be thinking at minimum of 300 w to power
the rig
with the processor you have. I'd be dubious that you could make a
reliable
test even if you had a 20 to 24 pin adapter with a 200 w PS. You
wouldn't
have to hook up any drives just as long as you have a cpu, RAM, and
video
card on the mb. Additionally the old PS would have to have a squarish
4 pin
cpu plug that fits to the mb. Does it have one? Older ATX PSs don't
--
Jan Alter

Actually, after thinking about it for a bit, I'm just going to go out
and buy a PSU and try it. If it doesn't solve the problem, I can
return it. As you say, I want a reliable test, and dinking around with
an old 200 Watt PSU with adaptor doesn't neccessarily give me a good
test. I'll post the results of the PSU switch later today.


I just put in a new PSU, an Antec SmartPower 2.0 400 Watt, and the same
thing happens, except that now I don't hear the beep. Maybe that means
the beep was coming from the fan speed monitoring unit on the original
PSU? Anyway, any thoughts on what I ought to do next - besides return
the PSU I just bought.

Jack
thanks,

Jack

Well that's disconcerting. As Robert mentioned, disconnect all case wires
(reset, power switch, LEDs) to the pins. They need not be connected to get
the system started.With a flat screwdriver short the two power switch pins
on the mb. I know it's trivial but you have you connected the 4 pin square
cpu plug onto the mb in addition to the 24 pin power connector?
Additionally, you're sure that the cpu hsf connector is on the correct
header for the fan? Many mbs have several headers and if the hsf is
connected to the wrong header the mb will not power on or shut off shortly.
Further, make sure that this mb, with it's onboard video is enabled, if it
has a jumper to be in a certain position. Finally, try resetting the bios,
by first disconnecting the power from the wall outlet and then moving the
jumper and replacing it.
Disconnect any hdds, or CD-ROMs from the system when doing this. If they
are the problem it will then show up later.
If none of this works the problem may be a DOA mb.It's realtively rare that
a processor is bad from the complaints I've read over the years, though
nothing should be discoounted.
--
Jan Alter

or