after putting together 4 identical barebones kits all with evga nforce4 mobos and athlon x2 cpus (no additional cooling other than the 3 case fans) i get as far as windows starting to go through setup from the install cd and it powers down. if i immediately power back up it may only stay on a few seconds. this is all four machines, not just one. im blown, please advise. ive reset cmos over and over, all jumpers are good. is the cpu overheating that fast?

Cheapa$$ power supply units in all of them?

What's the make/model/wattage of these PSUs & how many amps are on the +3.3v, +5v & +12v rails? If you don't know, open the case & get the info from the label on the side of the PSU.

BTW, did you benchtest these boards before slapping them in the case & connecting all the rest of the hardware? If not, that was mistake # 1.

no, i didnt benchtest any of them, but i cant imagine 5 of them all being bad. guess anything is possible. below is the psu info:

AC INPUT 115V/230V 10A/6A 60/50Hz
MAX OUTPUT
CURRENT +5V +3.3V +12V1 +12v2 -12V +5VSB
30A 30A 16A 18A 0.6A 2.5A

Watts 160W 384W 7.2W 12.5W
481W 19.7W
500W

If all kits are doing the same thing, obviously something is wrong & whatever it is, it's common to ALL 4 setups.

A weak PSU will give the exact symptoms that you're having. The specs you listed are OK but you didn't include the brand name of the unit. There are plenty of 500W PSUs that are absolute crap. A decent 500W unit sells for at least $50. And a decent PSU is made of heavy duty components & heavyweight heatsinks...it will weight at least as much as a 2 liter soda (approx 5 lbs)

it is an ultra x-finity 500-watt psu

here's a link to your PSU:

http://www.ultraproducts.com/produc...

I'm running an Ultra 500W V-series in one of my rigs & a 500W X-Connect in another. Mine have a single +12v rail of 28A (V) & 34A (X). I've had no problem with either.

You really should have benchtested the boards. Can you bootup & get into the BIOS or does the system shutdown? If you can get into the BIOS, check your CPU & system temps. And why would you reset CMOS over & over? After you did that, did you correct the "damage" that you did? The BIOS should always be custom configured...deafult settings are NOT good performance settings.

What about the rest of your specs? Which X2? Which EVGA board? What RAM & video card?

i can get into the BIOS, for about 10 seconds before it shuts down again. the mobo is an evga nforce 4 (according to the box), AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ Socket 939 CPU, PNY 2048MB PC3200 DDR 400MHz (2x1024MB), nvidia fx 5500 video card. what are you suggesting i do in the bios, what would cause it to do that within the bios?

There are numerous settings in the BIOS that need to be tweaked. I'm not saying that resetting the BIOS is what's causing your problem, I'm just saying that the settings will have to be checked & corrected...especially if you wanna get the most out of your hardware.

If you're only getting about 10 secs, my guess would be overheating...probably an improperly installed HSF. The 1st thing you should do is gut the case, or at least disconnect all non-essential hardware. Remove all cards but video, remove all but one stick of RAM, unplugg ALL drives (HDD, optical, floppy)...both the power & data cables, unplug all case fans, disconnect all external devices except the keyboard & monitor. Now see if you can bootup & access the BIOS.

BTW, FX5500 video card? The nF4 doesn't support AGP so it must be a standard PCI card. Hopefully it's just for tesing purposes?

yes, just standard pci, its the only thing walmart had until i get my card from newegg. ill try this first thing tomorrow and see what happens. if its over heating should i invest in a cpu fan? how about thermal compound on the cpu?

Did the CPU come with an AMD HSF or an aftermarket one? Was a thermal pad preinstalled on the heatsink or did you use paste? If paste was used, did you apply a small dab in the center of the CPU about the size of a BB?

Here is how to properly apply paste:

http://www.arcticsilver.com/pdf/app...

P.S. I can't believe you wasted your money on an FX5500 PCI instead of waiting a few days. Those cards suck. Package it back up & return it ASAP! ;-)

I can't help but to think that all 4 of these pc's heatsinks aren't proplerly installed correctly 10 seconds seems about right until the motherboard thermakl heat protection kicks in and shuts your system down.

Also did you make sure the 4 pin cpu power connection to the cpu is plugged in?

i didnt use paste and i dont see any type of pad. im going to get some arctic silver and a decent cpu fan (and graphics card) and see what happens, i dont have any doubt it is definitely heat related.

Response number 12 is the problem
"i didnt use paste and i dont see any type of pad"

Not good

Well then that's your problem right there.

i just didnt realize it would overheat that fast

Yes you're lucky that isn't a Socket A or Socket 7 or any other pre motherboard thermal heat protection socket or else all 4 processors would have fried.

wonderful, thats what i get for thinking this stuff comes included on "pre-built" barebones. thanks for the help.

Nope it doesn't only on retail versions. OEMs or barbones you're on your own when it comes to thermal paste for heatsinks.