Possible power issues?!?

[Mathius]

hey, im new to this site and was wondering if anyone could suggest a solution.

my set up is as follows

 

Intel core 2 quad Q6600 @ 2.4 Ghz

Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3 motherboard

Corsair 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2

Point Of View 9800GTX

Antec 650W Neopower Modular PSU

2xDvdrw drives

2x sata HDD 1x80gb 1x320gb

Windows vista home premium

 

I built the thing myself and it has been working since january when i first built it. today i turned the machine on and it tuns itself off before reaching the bios screen, it then turns itself back on again, which it has never done before on a crash, a few seconds later and then off again after a few seconds more. it has done this a few times before i gave up and pulled the thing apart, there seems to be no apparent reason for this behaviour, no burnt out boards, no dust clog, no nothing, so i put it back together then try again. It does the same thing and i have no idea why. could someone help solve this problem?

[Guest Wolfeymole]

Hi Mathius

 

Welcome to Extreme Tech Support - Free PC Help

 

What kind of cooling systems over and above the normal CPU and PSU fans do you have?

[Mathius]

Thanks. 7 run of the mill fans.

[mike]

Hi Mathius,

 

A simple suggestion but possibly the 'Reset' or 'Power' button could be 'stuck' on the main PC case. You could try ruling this out before you start to strip the machine down? :)

 

Mike

[Seth]

Also try it with one ram stick at a time.

[steveie85]

Is there an LED light on the motherboard? If so is it lit up and green? Sometimes there is a second LED that lights up and is red, these are there to tell you if the board is getting power and if it is good, clean and sufficent power. That will indicate a problem with the PSU.

[Dalo Harkin]

Seen this before on a Gigabyte - its just the MOBO internal settings, there is not much that you can do unless you swap the MOBO out -

are you OC'ing?

[Mathius]

hey guys. right, firstly i didnt think of the reset button being stuck but it wasnt unfortunatly. i've tried it with one stick of ram and again unfortunatly not the problem. there are led's on the motherboard, 2 green, 2 orange and 2 red but when i switch on all of them are lit. and no i havent overclocked the proccessor i wouldnt know how. does that mean i need to replace the motherboard? or if i take it to a specialist could they repair it?

[Dalo Harkin]

You dont need to replace it - its basically just something somewhere not liking something - I used to have an ASUS board that did the same - used to power up and then pause and then fire up - its nothing to worry about until it stops booting and then its just a case of the MOBO - you could try replacing the PSU incase its feeding too much power to the board - but I doubt it.

[Mathius]

the problem is that it doesnt boot at all. it just repeats the process until it beeps three times and i worry it might blow up or something so i turn it off again. what power supply would you suggest to try?

[Dalo Harkin]

Right - 3 beeps indicates a badly inserted GPU or its not getting the power required - try re-inserting the GPU and if that doesnt work borrow a friends and try that one.

[Mathius]

hopefully not sounding stupid but GPU is graphics card right? i reinserted it and nothing again, i've tried my old graphics card and the same thing happens.. and the beeps came sooner.

[Dalo Harkin]

Yes GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) is the Graphics card.

Have you tried the RAM yet - try with just one stick in and if that doesnt work - try the other stick in the same slot -

3 beeps is normally GPU, CPU or RAM

[Mathius]

thank you. right i swapped the sticks of ram and tried it with one and it booted. does that mean my ram has broken?

[Dalo Harkin]

99% of the time yes - but you could also have a bad DIMM slot on the MOBO - try the 'suspect' RAM stick on its own and see if the problem is still there - if it is then the RAM is indeed dead

[Mathius]

ok this is so strange. the suspect ram worked on its own fine so did the other stick, when i put both sticks in with the suspect ram in port 1 it beeps with the suspect ram in port 2 it works fine. whats going on?

[Dalo Harkin]

that particular stick doesnt like that port - it happens sometimes - run it with what ever runs in which slots - it is very common

[Mathius]

that is so strange. thank you for you help and patience!

[Dalo Harkin]

You are welcome - feel free to ask about anything else

[steveie85]

I have seen ASUS boards do that a lot. Gigabyte and MSI not so much but it does happen. I swear it does weired stuff sometimes just to annoy us!!

[Dalo Harkin]

On occasion the MOBO manufacturer will release a BIOS update that will sort out issues with a DIMM slot issue - think the last one I saw was on an ABIT AW9D MAX - my old board had an issue with DIMM slot 3