Just finished building my first comp, I have pretty good computer knowledge... but cant figure this one out.

I startup for the first time, and the fans all spin and bios boots up, I've successfully built a living comp right? NO WAY, within 1 minute the case goes dark and the fans stop and the comp dies. I try to boot a couple more times and the comp shuts down sooner each time.

Sound like a CPU overheating, but it couldn't that quickly right? Only other thought is that there isnt enough power, but im not running that much gear.

Ideas Anyone!??

Runnning an ASUS p5N-E SLI with a core2 duo. I have a radeon 512 MB, 4gb of 800 dimm, avg HD and DVD rom. 430W thermaltake power supply and case.

hmmm a 430w PSU should be perfectly fine for that comp, and your right about the CPU, it could not possibly be overheating THAT quickly. it is my belief that the computer is shutting itself down to avoid damage due to improper connections or faulty hardware. now, the quickest and easiest thing to do first, is to check that everything is connected properly. check each and every cable that is plugged into the motherboard, make sure that they are all plugged into the correct spot according to the motherboards manual. if you cannot find any errors, then we can move on into testing the hardware.

the first piece of hardware i SUSPECT would be your RAM. you say that you have 4gb of DDR2 800, so i can safetly assume that you have at least 2 sticks if not 4. remove all but one stick of RAM. try booting the computer using that one stick of RAM. if the computer boots and stays running, then one or more of the two or three other sticks of RAM is faulty. if your comp dies again, try another stick of RAM, do this for all 2 or 4 if you have to.

please post back if you are confused about any of this or the above advice does not work.Its possible that one of you connections is right. Check them and if that doesn't work you mite need more cooling try getting a bigger Heatsink if the problem is still there.Did you use all the MBoard standoffs in your assembly ? ?
As Homer asked have you checked all the connections ? ?
Did you remember to use thermal paste when assembling the fan/heatsink combo ? ?

All of these things will produce the conditions you describe here...OK, so i got the initial problem solved... my cpu was overheating due to a poor cpu/heatsink connection (cheesy intel heatsink pins).

Now I got into BIOS and setup to boot, put in my XP CD, and went to load the OS.

Only problem was that my DVD ROM failed to initialize.

I got to the stage where i selected to "begin windows setup from CD" selected the option, then waited for the setup to begin.... Drive not detected = FRUSTRATION...

Any ideas?


BTW thanks for teh help on the CPU problem!!Quote

OK, so i got the initial problem solved... my cpu was overheating due to a poor cpu/heatsink connection

Only problem was that my DVD ROM failed to initialize.