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problems with the Power Up -- Power fades out

here's ths deal. i build computers for fun, and occassionaly for spare money. i recently amassed the components for a desktop system and assembled it, but it will not power on. When i turn the power supply on, it tries to power up (the fans spin, power LED comes on), but only for about 5 seconds or so. changing the adapters that components use to connect to the power supply produces more or less up time (between 3 seconds and about 1.5 minutes), but it always powers down again. It just sort of fades out.

system specs are:
Asus A7N8X-X
AMD 2500+ Barton
Thermaltake Volcano 9
GeForce FX 5700
WD 80 GB 5400 RPM HD
Generic 52x cd-rw
Superflower SF-609 fan controller/temp monitor

I've tried with the power supply that came with the case, as well as a power supply i KNOW to be good (both 420W) to no avail. i thought it may have been low voltage from the outlet, so i plugged my good machine in and it worked fine.

best guess i have is that the MoBo should be RMA'd.

any suggestions?

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

getajob20

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HippyWarlock

Sounds like heat!

Have you got any odd BIOS settings like 'Stop everything when the CPU hits 45'

Have you fitted heatsink correctly - and applied thin thermal grease - and removed supplied pad?

HippyWarlock

Next unplug everything you can -
CD drive
graphics card (if you have onboard graphics)
any other PCI cards
any extra slave/secondary devices

Still got a problem............... errrrr - see above - return card

compfixer101

faulty ram or mobo or even the cpu check bios and clear cmos with jumper

frmrpreztaft

ASKER

Getajob20:
everything is good as far as i can tell.

HippyWarlock:
haven't even been able to get to the bios - this is a completely virgin machine. I tried clearing the cmos via jumpers and the battery - nothing,
HS/F installed properly fo' shizzle.
i've tried booting it with JUST the CPU fan, same thing.

compfixer101
ram checks out in my other machine.
cmos has been cleared.
it sucks now cause i don't know whether it is the CPU or MOBO.

any hints as to how to differentiate?

HippyWarlock

Put the CPU in another PC - Ask a friend

Mobo is vastly complex and..... needs the BIOS to work - catch 22

shastrymahesh123

Thjis issue seems either with the processer or the power supply. Try putting the processor of this system in a known good system and try booting the known good system. If the system boots fine, then the processor is good. If not, then the processor needs to be replaced.
If the processor is good, then try following the above procedure for the power supply.
If both the parts seem to be working fine, then I think the issue is with a bad system board / mother board.