Hey everyone, I've got a older workhorse PC that's dieing and I can't for the life of me figure out why. Here's the breakdown. It shuts of seconds after I turn it on. No matter what I do, if I got into the bios it dies IN the bios. 3.2 GHZ P4 380W ANTEC Truepower PSU (CHECKED - Switched it with another, works fine) ASUS P5GD1 Board One stick of 512 RAM - checked, works fine. I don't even have a HD plugged in right now. I've stripped it down to almost nothing. The PSU is definitely fine, I tried it on another PC and tried another PSU in the machine, and I still get the same problem. The Ram I've checked, it's fine. That leaves the CPU and Mobo as far as I can tell. The two things I can think of are - CPU over heating (but I can't figure out why this would be the case, it's got a giant coolermaster fan cranking way to much air onto it, should be plenty to keep it cool) OR bios problem, but again, it loads the bios just fine and then crashed about the same number of seconds in (5-7seconds) whether I am in the bios or not. Any help would be MUCH appreciated. Thanks in advance, J

The size of fan on the CPU heatsink makes very little difference if there is a poor thermal contact between the heatsink & CPU. Get a tube of thermal grease. Remove the heatsink. Clean off the old grease/thermal pad using isopropyl alcohol. Make sure you clean both the CPU and Heatsink. Apply a new small amount ( about size of rice grain ) of grease. Refit heatsink. See if it will boot up Goin' Fishin' (Some day)

I agree with Richard. It sure sounds like a CPU overheating.

Thanks guys, I'll pick up a tube tommorow and see how it goes. The quick responses are much appreciated.