I'm getting really upset here. I'm building a new system for my sister. Here are the specs.

350W coolmax psu
Asrock k7S8XE MB
AMD Duron 1.8ghz cpu
Vantec cpu fan
Crucial 512 pc2100 ram
80 gig Seagate HD
Radeon 9200 128meg Video Card
LG DVD-Rom/CDRW Combo Drive

First off, I absolutely hate the case I bought. It has these metal clips you bend into rectagular slots for the MB standoffs. Anyways, the standoffs are in their proper positions. First test run, I don't have anything hooked up at all. Just the cpu and cpu fan. It boots up for about 5-10 seconds, then it just powers down. At first I thought that the MB was shorted somewhere, so I totally remove the MB and try booting it up again. Same thing happens. So I know its not a short. That leaves me with a few possibilities. 1) The PSU is junk: I doubt this is the case though. Coolmax is a respectable name and the fans all seem to be working properly. 2) Faulty cpu: Don't know if this would cause it to just power down though. 3) Faulty MB: This is what I'm betting on. I read a few reviews on here of people saying good things about Asrock MB's. I decided to go out on a limb and give it a shot since the price was right even though I've never even heard of the name. I'm in a real bind here guys and gals. I've never ran into a problem like this. Any ideas? Should I ship the MB back and get a new one or what?

Check that the CPU is seated properly. Then trade the mobo in for either a decent budget mobo like MSI or one of the top performers. i.e. Asus, AOpen, Abit, or Gigabyte

Asrock is basically a budget Asus from memory, and they are usually pretty good.

Well I'm shipping it back. NewEgg's customer service is great by the way. I'm forkin' out $20 more and getting a Gigabyte board.

If you can at least you will help rule out the motherboard.

BTW, if your sister needs any help or guidance, I can supply it on an as needed basis.

You're my mentor PornoMan. :)

Originally posted by Stryker_PornStar
fellow pornstar

That'll be me:uhwell:

Keep talking like that and you'll make Van nervous again. :)

Even I'm starting to have twitches.

Umm, hate to rain on your parade Mr. Pornstar, but I was under the impression that Gigabyte mobos were one of the worst brands.

Maybe its just bad luck but out of the 3 different Gigabyte mobos that I have installed two of them needed the bios reflashed, and the other one I had to send back but worked fine when I finally got it back.

Its been at least a year since then, and the ones I bought were probably the cheapest models. So hopefully they are different now but I'll never get one of those mobos ever again.

Btw try what 420 said and reseat the cpu, it seems like the cheaper mobos have shoddy sockets. It took me three reseatings on the last generic mobo I bought to get it to work.

Well, I've had good luck with the Gigabyte boards I've bought. The cpu was seated correctly as during that 10 second time span I could access the bios after I installed the memory and video card. It was detected and running at 1.8ghz.

Ditto, I got a gigabyte board and it's been good, just steer away from the via chipsets.

Maybe the memory is causing it.

Um is your sister in porn as well? I would like to audition. :D

Many newer motherboards have a safety temperature switch that will kill the power if it thinks the processor is getting too hot. Don't know if that MB had that feature, but if the cut off temp was set too low....

Have you tried a stick of memory that is known to be good?

As far as the Gigabyte boards, I have used several of them with no problems -- currently have a box running a 7DXR, but must admit that I am really impressed with a Soltek (FRN2-L) that I picked up from Newegg as a refurb for $40.

The Abit KT7a had a similar problem whereby there were two cpu fan headers on the board. If you connected the fan to one header it was ok but the other header caused the PC to shut down after 5 seconds.

Originally posted by TierraDelFuego
The Abit KT7a had a similar problem whereby there were two cpu fan headers on the board. If you connected the fan to one header it was ok but the other header caused the PC to shut down after 5 seconds.

Bet that was a *****. did the fan work on the header that caused the shutdown?.

Yeah, a lot of boards won't even boot up if you don't have a fan plugged in to the cpu1 fan outlet. I know it's not the memory because I tested all the hardware in another machine. Not to mention I didn't even have any hardware installed and it was still just powering down. Hopefully I'll have better luck with this next MB. Thanks for all of your replies.