System powers up then quickly dies!

digerati

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Joined
21 Mar 2004
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I just upgraded my 3700+ and zalman 7000 hsf to a 3800+ x2 and a zalman 9500 hsf and decided to power up the system to test it out but it is behaving oddly. I am still waiting on a new videocard to arrive so the system currently has no card installed.

When I hit the power button, the system will begin to power up, lights come on and the fans spin up for about 2 sec. before stopping. Everything just turns off and pushing the power button again won't cause anything to happen. Only if I flip the PSU switch off and then on will the system power up again, but only for another 2 seconds before stopping again. I can repeat this over and over with the same result every time.

I tried removing the mobo and carefully reseating the cpu and hsf as well as making sure the mobo was properly screwed to the case. After plugging everything back in and making sure the RAM is also secure, the same result continues. The system was working perfectly when I shut it down for a week while waiting for my new parts to arrive. Other than the CPU and the HSF everything is still the same.

Any idea what the problem might be?

Is the PSU suddenly bad or perhaps the new CPU is a lemon? Or is this just cause I dont have a vidcard installed yet?

I have a spare 330w psu around and I'll try using that one and see how it goes, but at the moment I'm just not sure what the problem is.

Thanks for any help!

Here's the system specs:
Athlon64 3800+x2
2x1gb Corsair XMS pc3200
Zalman 9500 hsf
Asus A8N-E mobo rev.2 w/ latest bios
Liteon dvd burner
Liton cdrw/dvdrom
Seagate 7200.7 sata 120gb
Seagate 200gb eide
floppy drive
Soundblaster Audigy2 ZS
Antec Truepower 2.0 550w PSU
 
Video card missing will just cause some beep codes (and no vidoe).

The bios may be set to do a protective shut down if it is reading an excessive temperature or if there is no fan rpm signal.

1) Make sure the yellow wire form the HSF goes to the correct pin on the MB CPU Fan header. Even if you are plugging the fan into a seperate power connector.

2) make sure heat sink is sitting flat on the cpu and in contact with the metal. Tho 2 seconds is too fast for an overheat unless the HS is compleetly loose.
 
Here's some new info I just got from testing:

I removed the 550w antec PSU and put in a generic 330w I had around, and the system seems to power up just fine, though I did leave one dvddrive and harddrive unplugged just to be safe since it's only 330w.

I also put the 550w psu into an old backup system I have, athlonxp 1800+ with an ati 9800pro one cdrw drive and one harddrive and that system powers up normally too.

However, I did notice that both the back and bottom fans in the antec 550w psu were not spinning at all. I am not sure if this is because it wasn't warm enough to require spinning up, or if both fans are dead and that might be the basic problem.

Any ideas?

-----------------

Here's some more new info:

I tried plugging the antec 550w back into my main system and after 2 bum tries that died out after 2 secs just like before, on the 3rd try it powered up normally and has been doing it ever since.

I'm not sure if something just wasn't grounded properly or if the PSU just spontaneously decided to work again.

I do have it running on some antistatic material on my workbench with the cables going into the case.

Also, the fans on the PSU still don't spin at all as far as I can tell.
 
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