I recently decided to build my own computer. I bought the following components: Motherboard: PCPartner RC410MS7-A65C Socket775 mATX Motherboard w/LAN/SND http://www.pcpartner.com/product_de... CPU: Intel Pentium 4 550 3.40GHz 800MHz 1MB Socket 775 CPU http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?in... RAM: Kingston 1GB DDR 400mhz I also bought a video card, wireless card and some other stuff. But I will be installing these later to avoid driver installation without Windows. I used my old hard drive and CD/RW drive instead of buying new ones. I installed these components into a new Antec case w/380w power supply. (NSK4400) After installing everything, I decided to power up and the computer turned on for about 10 seconds and then shut off. I think that the motherboard begins to recognize the hardware and something is wrong so it fails and shuts down for safety. I am am wondering, do I have a bad motherboard? Is this problem associated with a typical error? Do I have compatibility issues? Thanks. -Mike

In addition, should I disconnect everything and run a barebones setup (CPU, RAM, MOBO) to see if I can even pass the system check? -Mike

I've seen PCPartner boards at Geeks.com. I don't think I would never buy one though...there are just too many decent brand name boards available. Why take a chance on an unknown? Besides, Intel CPUs generally perform best with Intel chipsets. What type of HSF do you have? The P4 Prescott runs hot & needs a decent heatsink. You should ALWAYS do a "barebones" benchtest before installing the board in the case. That way you can confirm that it works. You can also monitor the CPU temp to make sure that's OK...if necessary, it's MUCH easier to remove & replace the heatsink when the board is ouside the case. You should also manually configure the BIOS settings during this benchtest. The barebones setup should be tested once again after it's installed in the case. This should be done BEFORE connecting any drives or installing any cards. If everything's good up to this point, the next thing to do would be to connect a floppy drive (or optical drive) & test the RAM with memtest86 or memtest86+. There's no point in trying to install Windows (or whatever OS you plan on running) if there are memory errors. If the memory checks out, connect the rest of your hardware & install the OS, drivers & the rest of your software.