[Bummie]

Hi guys

A friend of mine bought a new computer online from Tiger Direct and is have major problems with it.

It is a:

* Chaintech mobo
* AMD Sempron 2800+ 2.00 GHz CPU
* 256 MB DDR memory
* 300 watt power supply
* Maxtor 80 Mg hard drive

What it does is it will start up and boot from the floppy or CD rom.... which ever you decide to use and run for a while.... but we have yet been unable to install Windows XP as it won't run long enough to get it installed. It will get about half way through the install and just power down. When it does this you have to wait a couple of minutes before it will power up again.

I have tried a different power supply on it but it does the same thing.

Any ideas??? Is it the mobo or the way it is setup??

Thanks.... Bummie

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Check the cpu temps. You can usually do this in the bios. Boot up into bios & find cpu temp then unless it's stupidly high already, leave the system running for a while in the bios. Monitor the temps carefully.

Is this a barebones system that your friend has built himself or was it prebuilt?

[Samm]

Check the cpu temps. You can usually do this in the bios. Boot up into bios & find cpu temp then unless it's stupidly high already, leave the system running for a while in the bios. Monitor the temps carefully.

Is this a barebones system that your friend has built himself or was it prebuilt?

[Bummie]

Check the cpu temps.

Is this a barebones system that your friend has built himself or was it prebuilt?

There is no where in the BIOS that has temperatures so can't check that way. I have let it run for a long time just sitting at "Press any key to boot from CD" and it doesn't shut down but as soon as you start to install Windows it does.

It is a barebones that he put together himself. I checked every step that was in the manual and as far as I can tell everything was done correctly. He said he put a fairly big glob of heat sink grease on the heat sink... that is the only thing I didn't check.

I have also tried a different memory stick since the last post but still no luck.

Any more ideas???

Thanks..... Bummie

[Samm]

Hmmm, putting too much thermal paste on the cpu can be a bad thing also.
I would suggest, just to eliminate this as a possibility hopefully, that your friend removes the heatsink, cleans all the compound off using a special anti static cleanser & reapplies a good quality thermal paste (artic silver 5 for example). Just use a pea sized blob on the centre of the die.
However, if he didn't use any more or any less than this amount the first time round & it was a good quality one, then leave it alone.

The other thing I noticed that concerns me somewhat, is the PSU. 300W is not nearly enough for a system of this spec, even though thats the one that was supplied with it from Tiger direct.

Check also that your friend hasn't over-clocked the system in any way (deliberately or by mistake). Check the voltage (vcore) setting, the FSB of the CPU & RAM, and the CPU multiplier.

If you let me know what the model number of the board is & the exact RAM specs, I will confirm the correct settings for you if you want.