Hi guys.

I never have problems building computers until i build one for myself. I would appreciate any help as im at the mental breakdown stage now.

I have a new mobo, processor and ram, all hooked up on a bench to try and get it working, i an using an old 550w psu and HDD.

The problem is i cannot get it past the POST, i normally get a single beep which mean all is ok then it just hangs on the mobo's splash screen, cant get past it.

I have reset the CMOS jumper and battery many times which leads to one of two different thing, first is the exact same problem just hangs at the splash screen or two it get stuck in a loop which restarts3 times then hangs at the splash screen.

I can rarely get to the bios menu (takes a lot of retarting, clearing cmos and spamming del) but as soon as i save an quit its exactly the same.

I completly stuck on ideas and would appreciate any ideas you have.

Cheers

What are the minimum power requirements for your CPU, graphics card, motherboard etc...?

If you've just installed something in the range of a quad core, a 550 PSU really isn't going to cut it. Especially if you have a high range graphics card in there as well.

I would also check that all the cables on the PSU are actually working. Try swapping some out on the disk drive to check that they are actually supplying power.

As well as that, what motherboard/CPU did you get?.Although the chip is supported you may need to update the bios to a certain version before the CPU will work in it.

Thanks welshy

I made a mistake in my last post the psu is actually 520w, i searched a site that calculates the wattage needed at it recommends 400, i also checked the mobo manual which reports 500 so it should be ok, even if i take into account the wattage lose over age it should meet requirements,

i have also posted on the site i brought the hardware from here it has the parts i am using on it,

Problem with the bios is i can't even flash it now as i cant get to it at the moment.

I'm stuck for ideas other than returning the mainboard but thats a long process i could do without

Power supply should be fine. Sounds like you got unlucky with the motherboard (although this is hard to confirm without trying all your components in a different system).

hay rasta coming from someone who rigs thing that are not supposed to work i get the same problem of repeated restart for me its due to improper ground fault so make sure all your plugs are good and the power supp is in a solid case this is what was happening to me it turned out that my psu was not grounded right so it would work and then not i would try rebuilding it again and make sure the psu is clean and grounded

if that does not work take a look at your ram. Im going to say that u know that you have the right ram for that motherboard so try to removeing your ram and put one stick in at a time even thow its dual just one stick at a time.if that one stick dont load your bio's try a diffrent one in that same slot then repeat. then move to the 2nd, this will

• tell u if you have a bad stick or sticks of ram
  
• This will tell you if one of your ram slots are bad ( rar but happens)
  if you find out in the 1 slot that only one ram does not work put all the ram in exp the one that does not. good luck and i hope this will help

I agree with the assessments above. The problem sounds to be either (in order):

1. PSU
   
2. RAM
   
3. Bad board

Try the steps outlined by KillerCrazzy.

Thanks for your replies

@Pedro.

I really hope your wrong this buddy, could do without that agro of phone calls and returning stuff then waiting, after i paid extra for next day delivery.

@gother

I checked, checked then checked again that my PSU is grounded, appears ok. It powers the board and restarting over and over isn't occuring much now, i am though still stuck on the splashscreen, it almost appears like the computer is just locking up when it tries to post.

@Killer

I followed your advise, i did try before but went through it and tried every combo i could think of, 1 in each 4 slots then the other.. Same result.

Thank you for the thoughts, im getting stuck for ideas now, i don't have any other system parts that i can try them in so im all ears for any ideas.

The mobo seems to power up the cpu fan and gfx card all appear to work but something is stopping it all on boot up. I cant flash the bios because i cant even access it. Im not sure on the RAM as i only have the two new sticks and my other systems use DDR2

One thing i did see only once though when i thought i cracked it and the post started reporting on screen was 'unknown processor' after some googling i found this shouldn't be fatal therefore not stop the bootup.

foyleman writes...

Is there any way you know to determine a faulty PSU and would that really stall the computer on the mobo splashscreen?

The RAM is hard to tell, when i got in the bios is did report the full 4gb (2 sticks of 2gb) so im thinking its more a board problem, although now im concerned about the PSU

Actually.. try calling the manufacturer of the board for assistance. Otherwise, I do not know how to confirm if the issue is with the board or other piece of hardware without being able to test it in other machines.