[NsxAnJeL]

Alrighty, I just built myself a new computer and to say it's had a few problems would be an understatement. At first, there was no display at all on the monitor. The fans booted up and such but no image. I tried two different video cards on two different monitors and that changed nothing. I ended up switching the RAM position in the motherboard which solved that problem. The computer, at one point, didn't even turn on when I pressed power! That was fixed by putting one of the jumpers on the motherboard back on (It was probably knocked off when switching vid cards or something), but only after I took out the PSU and actually checked it with a multimeter (it was fine). I was finally able to install windows 7 and even run a few programs and play some games. I only installed drivers for the video card, which i assume wasn't enough but everything was running fine.

Now comes the current problem.

After I left my computer in sleep mode for a few hours and came back, it was in the windows repair screen. It was finished, so I let it boot to windows, but as soon as it got to the windows loading screen, it restarted! It kept going in this restarting loop. I opened it up, played around with things and after taking off the CPU heatsink and putting it back on, it booted to desktop again. Yay, problem solved... Or so I thought. It did this everytime I turned the computer off, so everytime I played around with the heatsink and it eventually would boot up. Now, no matter how much I move things around, it won't boot up. It even started this weird "pulsing" where the lights go on for half a second then turn off and it does this a few times before the fans and stuff actually go on.

In short, my computer always restarts at windows loading screen, I thought it was the cpu overheating, but now I'm not so sure.

OS: Windows 7 64-bit
CPU: Intel i7 920
Motherboard: Asus, can't tell you more atm, I'm at work and don't have all info
Video Card: 295 GTX
HDD: Velociraptor 300gb ~250gb free
DVD drive: Some dell thing, worked fine in other computers
PSU: 850W Coolmaster, again at work don't have more info
RAM: 3x 2gb DDR3 Zenith @ ~1280MHz

Do you guys have any ideas as to why this is happening? I didn't need to pay this much for a paper weight

If you need more info, just ask. Though I won't be able to pull up a dxdiag, I'll do my best to provide the info you need

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NsxAnJeL, Welcome to Geekstogo! Sorry for the delay in response. Have you had any success?

I believe with the problems you are having you need to start over from scratch and do this the right way. When you say...

It even started this weird "pulsing" where the lights go on for half a second then turn off and it does this a few times before the fans and stuff actually go on.

I suspect either your motherboard is shorting out, or a faulty power supply.

1st Question: Did you use stand-offs when screwing the motherboard to the mobo tray? If not, your motherboard will surely be shorting out.
2nd Question: Did you bench test the hardware before installing it into the case?

Try this, take everything out of the case, and only hook up the necessary hardware for a bench test. This is the
motherboard,
cpu and heatsink/fan,
ONLY ONE stick of RAM in the correct single channel slot(read mobo manual),
onboard video if you have it, if not hook up the graphics card,
your monitor,
keyboard
power supply.

Do not hook up any other fans, lights, hard drives, optical drives, or anything else not needed. You can do all of this on a NON-carpeted surface, such as wood or a counter top, with NO carpeting under neath you. Place the motherboard on cardboard. Be sure to always ground yourself by touching something metal (i.e. the inside of your computer case)before handling any of the hardware. Try to hold most circuit board hardware by their sides, not clamping them between your fingers.

Connect an old power switch or set your computer case close enough to connect the power button. Turn the computer on. Immediately start tapping the appropriate key to enter set-up/BIOS (Refer to your mobo manual)

Did you get to the BIOS? If you did, you can assume that all the connected hardware thus far is working correctly and is not faulty. Next, turn the computer off, connect the hard drive, and press the power button. Since you have windows installed, see if it can fully boot. If it won't boot, start over and get back into the BIOS and see if the BIOS is recognizing the hard drive.

We'll stop there, and just see how things go. Good Luck

[Ferrari]

NsxAnJeL, Welcome to Geekstogo! Sorry for the delay in response. Have you had any success?

I believe with the problems you are having you need to start over from scratch and do this the right way. When you say...

It even started this weird "pulsing" where the lights go on for half a second then turn off and it does this a few times before the fans and stuff actually go on.

I suspect either your motherboard is shorting out, or a faulty power supply.

1st Question: Did you use stand-offs when screwing the motherboard to the mobo tray? If not, your motherboard will surely be shorting out.
2nd Question: Did you bench test the hardware before installing it into the case?

Try this, take everything out of the case, and only hook up the necessary hardware for a bench test. This is the
motherboard,
cpu and heatsink/fan,
ONLY ONE stick of RAM in the correct single channel slot(read mobo manual),
onboard video if you have it, if not hook up the graphics card,
your monitor,
keyboard
power supply.

Do not hook up any other fans, lights, hard drives, optical drives, or anything else not needed. You can do all of this on a NON-carpeted surface, such as wood or a counter top, with NO carpeting under neath you. Place the motherboard on cardboard. Be sure to always ground yourself by touching something metal (i.e. the inside of your computer case)before handling any of the hardware. Try to hold most circuit board hardware by their sides, not clamping them between your fingers.

Connect an old power switch or set your computer case close enough to connect the power button. Turn the computer on. Immediately start tapping the appropriate key to enter set-up/BIOS (Refer to your mobo manual)

Did you get to the BIOS? If you did, you can assume that all the connected hardware thus far is working correctly and is not faulty. Next, turn the computer off, connect the hard drive, and press the power button. Since you have windows installed, see if it can fully boot. If it won't boot, start over and get back into the BIOS and see if the BIOS is recognizing the hard drive.

We'll stop there, and just see how things go. Good Luck

[NsxAnJeL]

Still no luck, sadly. I tried what you said, get the mobo (Asus P6T BTW) out of the case and connected only what was necessary. I could get into the BIOS fine, but once i plugged in the HDD and tried to boot up windows, it shut down and did that same "pulsing" behavior, where it turns on for about a second then off again in intervals of 5 seconds. It eventually gets out of that state and boots again, but it takes at least 4-5 "pulses" before that happens. I didn't bench test the hardware before putting it in the case, but the mobo was on mounting brackets. Thanks so much for the help! Any other ideas?

P.S. I've tried booting from a cd, the windows 7 once as well as a linux backtrack cd i found lying around, the same problem occured with both of them.

**Update** I've replaced the HDD with another from my old computer, and instead of restarting I get a "A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer ..... Technical information: *** STOP: 0x0000007B (0xB84C3528, 0xC0000034, 0x00000000, 0x00000000)" Mean anything to you guys?

Edited by NsxAnJeL, 04 August 2009 - 04:55 PM.

[Ferrari]

Now we are getting somewhere. I'm suspecting either a bad hard drive or a faulty PSU, we'll check the memory too.

Lets run HD Diagnostics. (On your Velociraptor/new drive)

Go HERE, and select the manufacturer of your hard drive (Western Digital) and download the tool(Diag504fCD.iso). Scroll further down that same page and read the instructions for burning an .iso image(making a bootable CD). This will check to see if there is a problem with the HDD. Let me know if you need any help.

Lets make sure your memory is ok. Visit Memtest86
1. Click on "Download - Pre-compiled Bootable ISO (.zip). When it downloads, it will be labeled memtest86+2.11.iso.zip
2. Unzip the file once you have downloaded it. There will be an .iso file in the unzipped directory.
3. It will now be labeled memtest86+2.11.iso
If you don't have a burning program that will burn .ISO files get DVD Decrypter In DVD Decrypter, make sure to click on "Mode" at the top, Select ISO - Write before you burn the bootable CD.
1. Start DVD Decrypter
2. Click on the little folder directly to the right of "Please select a file..." Navigate to where you saved the .iso file.
3. Double click the .iso file or select it and click open.
4. To ensure a good burn, select your write speed to 8x or under. I use 8x.
Make sure the bios is set for the cd drive as the first boot device. Put the cd in your Drive and boot the computer.
Note : If you have been previously instructed, you can do all of this out side of the case.

Run memtest for at least 2 hours. If it starts showing any errors during that time then you will have to replace the memory. If there are no errors after 2 hours press Esc and that will end the tests.

Running the Diagnostic Program: (Courtesy Rshaffer61)

The basic diagnostic screen has five main sections of relevant information. Three at the top which are labeled, PASS %, TEST %, and TEST #. This will basically show you the total progress of the current test, the overall progress of the diagnostic test, and the test number is currently performing.

On the middle left hand side of the of the program interface there is a “Wall Time” section that will keep track of how long the diagnostic test has been running for. This just gives you an idea if you are not attending the testing process.

The main section to look for is the lower half of the screen which is usually blank. As long as the memory testing is going ok with no errors this section of the screen should remain blank. If the diagnostic program finds any serious faults in the memory you will see it display a memory dump of address’s in this section. This is similar to what is displayed on your screen when you encounter a blue screen of death.

You now have most everything you need to know about setting up and testing your memory with diagnostic programs. This guide should help you get to the source of any intermittent problems related to your memory.

[NsxAnJeL]

Alright, so I ran the HDD test, low and behold the beast (my computer) just shut down when the test was starting. I'm getting the impression that as soon as the system becomes mildly stressed, it restarts. In the 20 seconds that the test was running, there were no problems, but that doesn't really mean much. I decided to try the memory test, but my computer wouldnt start up (again with the pulsing) and I eventually had to leave for work. I'll try again tonight, but i'm getting the impression that its the PSU..

[Ferrari]

If you can't seem to run the tests, it may be best to just return the PSU. Try and see if you can run the memory test, see how it goes. Unfortunately, when you don't have access to multiple parts to just switch out, testing can be hard to complete. Often, when individuals build a computer and have no extra parts, just returning the part you think may be the problem is the way to go. Which sucks.

Another thing that I believe I wasn't clear on, is try to get to the BIOS and/or boot with a different memory stick. If the memory stick you are using is the culprit, it is highly unlikely that all 3 are bad. So try each one individually. Your speed for your memory seems odd. Usually its either, 1066, and the next step 1333, and then 1600. You list 1280mhz. I wonder if you are able to change the memories profile to 1066 or 1333, if that would help. If the memory is not set correctly, that can cause boot issues as well.

I think you get the idea of this process, just read over the instructions listed in this topic, and try different combinations of hardware and their settings. Maybe even try connecting the hard drive into a different SATA port.

Let me know how things go. If it ends up being a while before you are able to reply back, send me a PM and a link to the topic, as the website may automatically unsubscribe me from this topic after 14 days.

Edit: Try not to get discouraged, my first build went absolutely flawless, it just bad luck that things like this have happened on this build for you so far. We'll/you will get it figured out. You will love your i7 when its done. That's for sure!

Edited by Ferrari, 05 August 2009 - 10:55 AM.

[Dameon Skum]

Had this exact same problem myself up until about 3 weeks ago.

Pressed the power switch, booted for about 10 - 15 seconds, turned off. Pressed power switch, booted for less than 5 seconds and turned off and kept doing that till I left it for about 40 mins.

Basics, the main problem is a faulty CPU fan. I had an irritant Intel basic CPU fan which one of the push pins broke. After, it kept on overheating as the CPU Fan flat panel needs to be FLUSH on the Processor. All I suggest you try is to buy a new CPU fan. They're cheap only sitting in at about 15GBP. I brought this one for 25GBP. It is HUGE, but does an excellent, quiet job. It DOES come with thermal paste, but I brought a top of the range one for 5GBP which is here.

If this is the correct description of what is happening, atleast give this a shot.