todd

I've been struggling with a strange PC problem this week. I upgraded my CPU and motherboard to a Q9550 on a MSI P45-8D. I'm running 4 gigs of G.SKILL DDR2-800 RAM, an EVGA GeForce 8800 GT, and am using a BFG 650W PSU.

When I press the power button, the case lights come on and fans begin to spin, but everything powers down instantly. It is on for less than 1 second, without time to reach POST or see anything on the screen. After that, there is no response from the power button until PSU is switched off.

The weird part is that I have occasionally (about 1/8th of the time) gotten it to start up normally. Once it ran for a a few hours while I formatted a hard drive and installed Windows. As soon as I shut it down, though, it doesn't want to start back up.

I tested the PSU and GPU on different (less powerful) system and it worked flawlessly. Could it just be too weak/cheap to power this new motherboad and quad core processor?

Does this sound like it could be a bad motherboad or CPU? Afterall, they are the only two new parts in the whole system. My only option would be to RMA both of them as I have no way of testing each separately, so I'm trying to save that as a last ditch effort

Thanks, guys

Wyodiver33

The PS sounds like a good one, as BFG seems to put out good stuff, and 650 W should be fine. But it does sound like a PS prob. Try taking all RAM except one stick out, disconnect all drives except C drive, etc. If you can get it stable that way, try adding one component at a time until something goes wrong. Good luck!

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heyal256

I've had that happen to me on new builds. Sometimes if the motherboard is shorting itself on the case (standoffs maybe out of place causing a short) would cause the PS to automatically shut itself down to prevent damage to other components. Reseating the mobo and the rest of the components should help (sometimes just loosinging and re-tightining screws is all that is needed.

Lasereth

Sounds like a bad PSU to me.

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snowy

I had this happen to me on the first computer I built. An easy solution to eliminate this as a possibility is to put electrical tape over all of the exposed screw heads on the interior of the case.

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todd

Thanks guys. I have a new power supply in the mail, should be here tomorrow.

Yea I've heard that contact with the case could short something out, but I took everything out of the case at one point and had it laying out on a non conductive (cardboard) surface on my desk, yet the problem still existed. However come to think of it, the time I had it running for several hours straight WAS while I had it out of the case...

I'll give it another shot tonight.

todd

My new 750W PSU arrived today, and the computer started working immediately after installation.

However now I have run into an additional problem. After about 15 minutes of being on, everything locks up. It seemed like a RAM issue, so I pulled out all but 1 stick and tested each stick individually, yet the problem still exists.

I also get a beep error upon startup. Three or four seconds after the intial post beep, I get 4 beeps separated by pauses: 1-1-2

I'm a little unsure how to interpret the beeps though, even after looking at the charts here:
PC Hell: BIOS Error Beep Codes

I have AMI BIOS, but my beeps sound more like ones they have listed for the Phoenix BIOS. Unfortunately, they say the 1-1-2 code means the motherboard is having problems.

One time when it locked up, the LCD screen began to flicker pretty wildly - so fast that it hurt to look at it!

I'll try it with a new GPU and a few other sticks of memory, but otherwise I guess i'll look into exchanging the motherboard at Newegg