I am very confused on what is going on with the computer I just built. I have yet been able to get past BIOS. Usually it will test the memory and the processer and will check all of the IDE drives than freeze right after telling me either CMOS CHECKSUM ERROR (I was told most likely a bad CMOS battery or defective motherboard) or BIOS ROM CHECKSUM ERROR (I was told most likely a defective motherboard or bios chip(F1 and DEL dont work by the way)) than it will freeze and will shut off. Other times it will test the memory and processor then when it gets to the IDE drives it scans for about 15 seconds than says it cant find them (even though it did about 5 min. ago). Then it will freeze after giving me one long beep and it will again shut itself off. Well I was getting ready to take my computer apart so I could ship back the mother board (in an earlier post I found out that it was most likely a defective motherboard) and someone came in and asked me to start it up, because they waned to see the error message. So I started it up and I hit delete to prove it wouldnt go into BIOS and it actually did, even though it froze about 15 seconds after it got in than of course shut itself off (I cant get back in again).
So I was wondering could all of those errors be from a defective motherboard or could I be looking in the wrong area. Any help or advice you could give me would be much appreciated. Thanks.

(P.S. I have also tried booting with only the board, processor, memory, vidcard, and hard drive and still get nothing)

Have you reset the CMOS with the reset jumper? I would try that if you haven't. Also, I would try a minimal boot WITHOUT the hard drive. What are you doing for heat management, do you have a good heatsink/fan on the CPU and is it seated well?

Budfred

Edit:
Power supply could be an issue as well.

Budfred again

Did you double check to see if the CMOS jumper is on the correct pins?

If you have cleared the CMOS or install the jumper wrong you will always get that message.

I have already reset the CMOS and the jumpers are set correctly. I wouldn't think over heating would be too big of a problem considering that it shuts itself off after about 45 seconds and I cant mess with bios settingss because it just wont open up. Well thanks for the suggestions and hopefully I can figure it out here soon. And I am still open to any suggestions.

It may still very well be heat.

It takes 9 second to Melt an AMD cpu if the H/S is removed
If the H/S isn't seated correctly it may well be shutting down / over heating to protect itself or by way of the Bios.




Check this one Out.

http://www4.tomshardware.com/cpu/20010917/heatvideo-05.html

Try the motherboard out of the case to see whether it's shorting on the case.

Try pressing "Ins" on the keyboard at bootup, on some boards this will load fail safe settings in the bios if locked out! You may be able to enter the bios then.

Check Heatsink connection as above

If you can get into the bios, try to disable "Fan fail Shutdown" in "PC HEALTH" section of bios if applicable.

Failing that could be real-time-clock failure in the board itself.

Try taking cmos battery out and clear the jumper pins as well!

I hope any of this helps if not sorry and good luck!

Your startup process seems to be failing at the point detailed here
http://www.pcguide.com/ts/x/comp/mbsys/gen_Failure.htm

Perhaps this can give you some ideas.

If you are absolutely sure it's not heat related, that is, you have a good HSF and it's installed correctly, and the power supply is up to the task, then RMA the board. Nobody should have to go through all that pain just to set up a system.