Computer Turns Off After 5 Seconds

ok, I built my first computer, checked everything is plugged in correctly and hooked up everything where it is supposed to go. So I'm happy, plug it in and such, hit the opwer button. Problems arise, . When I first turned it on, the fans ran along with the harddrive as usual, it went BEEP about 6 seconds after I it turned on, and turned itself off. Only way to turn it back on was to unplug it from the wall and plug it back in. I unplugged everything, cards, IDE cables from HD and CD-Drive, and left my 256mb stick of ram. Turned on, then back off again. I changed one of the jumpers to reset the CMOS, turned it on again, and off it went. Then I took out the ram so all I had were fans and a processor, it went beep again, but stayed on. So I put my ram back in and my video card, worked fine, no beeps and took me to the CMOS settings. I changed the time, date, and such, Save and Exit. It reboots, and then turns itself off. What is wrong with my PC?

Chaintech 7NJL6 Socket A MoBo.
768Mb DDR PC2100 Ram.
GeForce 4 Ti4200 128Mb 4xAGP Video Card.
AMD Sempron 2800+
Sound Blaster Live! Sound Card
400w Power Supply.

 

Hey,

I have a couple of theories but they depend on a couple things. What exactly is happening on screen when it shuts off? Is it in the middle of loading the BIOS? If so, does it do it at the same exact place everytime in loading the BIOS? Or does it just shut off randomly sometime during start up. Your specs say 768MB Ram if I read correctly, what are the exact make and models of sticks you have in there adding up to that.

Here's my reasoning for the questions. If it's randomly shutting off here and there with no specific rhyme or reason it could be that your processor is overheating due to improper heatsink mounting or something (but in the first 6 seconds it's not as likely... with improper cooling I'd like to believe the processor could make it to windows before getting weird and shutting down the system) but it's a thought.

Secondly, and more likely than the first, if your RAM is rather mismatched I.E. different brands, speeds, sizes and all that good stuff this could be your problem. Memory modules like to work with other memory modules of it's kind (though mix and matching can work there's just many more doorways for problems when you heavily mix) ESPECIALLY if your Mobo supports dual channel memory and you have two mismatched sticks in the dual channels then your definatly gonna mess things up. So get back to me focusing on what kind of memory you have in your computer as well as where is this happening on startup and what's on the screen. Thanks!

 

I have one PC2100 256mb stick of DDR Ram made by Ultra, and a PC3200 512mb stick of DDR Ram also made by Ultra. It shuts off at the exact same time every time I try to start it up. The only way I can have it display anything is if I unplug HD IDE cable, move the jumpers to reset the CMOS Bios, leave the HD unplugged, and turn it on. It will then turn on. Also if I have a WinXP or Win2k CD in, it starts the setup, and directly after it says "Setup is loading Windows" it shuts off again. I'm not sure if it's a jumper issue, or a non-compatible HD issue, the HD I'm using is a Quantum Fireball 19.8Gb, speed I'm not sure of. The hard drive was taken out of my old Hewlett-Packard. Also, if I plug in the hard drive IDE cable while the bios is loading, although it isn't a good thing to do, if I do do it, it will start to load my Win2k which was installed on the hard drive when I transfered it to my new computer, after about 50% of the loading bar on the loading screen is full, it will come up with a blue screen, telling me an error about CORRUPT BOOT LOAD or something of the sort. I'm not currently at home, but I will post the error later. I've also taken off every part to the pc except the processor and power supply, and the only way to turn it on is to reset the CMOS Bios. Any suggestions?

 

Ram mismatch looks like the troublemaker.Try with one stick out.

 

Tried to run Windows Setup from disk with the original 256mb ram that came with it, still shut off.

 

What is the beep like? Anything other than one short beep means the motherboard is having a problem. Look in your motherboard manual under diagnostics, or troubleshooting. Something like that. It will tell you what the beep means.

 

Another thing. Is your Processor running at 333Mhz front side bus? If so, is your RAM trying to run at 333 as well? If so that would be a problem. Have you tried it with only the one stick of 512Mb of PC-3200 RAM? Ditch the stick of 256Mb. You'll get better performance running the 512 at PC-2700 anyway.

 

First. Chaintech never bothered to include a troubleshooting or FAQ page in their mobo manual. Second, it's not beeping at me anymore. Third, I'll go try with only the bare essentials using the 512mb stick.

 

Ok, with CD-Rom, HD, PS, Processor, Video Card, and Ram, it still shuts down after the "loading windows 2000" message on the win2k setup. I've tried switching spaces where the ram goes, going into bios and choosing "Load Fail-Safe Defaults", and loading with just the 256mb, and also with only the 512mb. I'm about to just send the pc back, never buy CHAINTECH stuff, it sucks.

 

Chaintech isn't the best, but it's not terrible either. You can go to their website and download the manual.

www.chaintech.com.tw