Newly Built Comp Shuts Down Spontaneously

[DarthFurby]

I upgraded from a 500mhz P3 to an AMD 1.5ghz rig and everything works great except that it shuts down out of the blue for apparently no reason. The monitor goes black with the message "Entering Powesave Mode", but the computer fan is still running and the lights are on but nobody's home. Even the hard drive is still spinning. Hitting Ctl+Alt+Delete does nothing. Also deactivated all the powersave settings under Control Panel.

I checked the power supply, but after buying a new one(Antec 550Watt) I still had the same problem. The power connections to the peripherals were checked and double checked.

Also reseated the heatsink and fan after applying a new coat of thermal paste. This was the trickiest part for me but I think I got it right. The CPU temperature hits about 40-43 degrees after its been on for several hours. This seems to be within spec.

I have a single stick of 128mb DDR Ram that I reinserted just in case. Unfortunately I don't have a spare stick to fool around with, so I'm hoping its not the Ram(it's brand new).

Any ideas?

System Specs:
AMD Athlon XP 1800+ 1.5Ghz CPU
128MB PC2100 DDR RAM
Verto GeForce 2 32MB AGP with heatsink.
Soyo Dragon Lite KT333 Mobo with Via 4 in 1 drivers
Standard PCI 56k Modem(refugee from my P3 500mhz machine)
Antec 550W Power Supply
6gig Harddrive(don't know the specs, it's old but worked great with my P3)

And last but not least:
AverTV Stereo PCI TV-card(I still have to double-check, but removing the TV card didn't seem to solve anything)

Also the 3.5 floppy and 48x creative labs cd drive were removed.

I'm removing parts piece by piece but would greatly appreciate any suggestions just in case I've overlooked something.

Thanks in advance.

[david eaton]

Hi Darthfurby. You stated in your post that you had disabled powersave setting in the control panel. Did you also disable the settings in the BIOS? I don't know offhand what Bios chip your mobo has, but there are settings there somewhere.
HTH

David

[Reid]

Originally posted by DarthFurby
I have a single stick of 128mb DDR Ram that I reinserted just in case. Unfortunately I don't have a spare stick to fool around with, so I'm hoping its not the Ram(it's brand new).


Try running the memory bus at a lower speed. The memory might be marginal and this might help isolate the problem.

[DarthFurby]

Thanks for the suggestions guys. Unfortunately I'm still trying to isolate the problem. Sometimes it shuts down, sometimes it doesn't, but I have yet to completely strip my comp down to the bare essentials with the motherboard on a piece of cardboard.

However I have discovered that sometimes when I plug/unplug headphones or speakers,or connect a cable to the comp the whole thing shuts down completely, fans and all. After which it refuses to reboot, as if the comp was shorted somehow. I have to unplug the cable to the power supply and reconnect before it'll turn on again, and sometimes I get a CMOS error upon reboot.

Anyone know why this is happening?

[ranchdog]

If you are running WIN98 go to Control Panel/
Display. Click on the Screen Saver tab. There
click on the Monitor Power Scheme option. Then
you will have choices of Always On, etc.

I wouldn't be plugging in cables of any type
(other than USB) while the system is running.

Here is a link to a site where the Soyo guru's
hang out:

http://www.amdforums.com/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=25


RD.

[DarthFurby]

Hey thanks for posting that soyo messageboard, I'm gonna check it out. I already fooled around with the power settings in the bios and control panel but no luck.