40 seconds up, then power down

[IxFxI]

Hey guys.....
I just bought a XFX nForce 680i LT along with a q6600, 4GB's of xms2-800 w/DHX RAM, and a EVGA 8800GT Superclocked GPU and installed it all today. I also have a Antec Trupower trio 650W powersupply.

I am telling you this because i have run into a very frustrating problem.
(NOTE:I have gone over all my power connector connections over and over)
When i push the power button to boot up the computer, it boots up great loading the post screen and allowing me to enter the BIOS. Except i can only mess around for about 40 seconds and then the system just powers off. Now i am assuming it is the motherboard since im sure that if i was blowing the power supply or if it didnt work then the thing would hardly power on at all..

does anyone know anything that i should change that could make this work..

I am really frustrated and kinda pissed off..

thanks

[Enigmachine]

My first reflex would be to think that your CPU heat sink is badly seated, so it doesn't work as well as it should; the CPU heats up slowly and when it reaches shutdown temp (60-70 c by default usually) the computer shuts down automatically.

So check if the heat sink is seated properly, did you use good thermal grease? Is the heat sink fan working?

Can you boot up, go into the bios and go to the system monitor page, check the CPU temperature there, does it rise up quickly till it reaches shutdown temp?

Don't raise the shutdown temperature just to check - it's a BAD idea. :)

I've had this problem once with an AMD CPU; the heat sink wasn't symmetrical, you had to put the slot in the copper base one direction only, but I didn't notice. The computer booted, worked for a little bit; I could get into Windows but as soon as I needed the CPU it would shut down. Eventually I peeked sideways at the mobo and saw the space between the CPU and the heat sink, wups! Turned it 180 degrees and it's been running fine since then. :)

[Kougar]

As Enigmachine said, it sounds exactly like the CPU is not getting cooled. The system will turn itself off when the CPU gets to a certain temperature threshold.

Also as Enigmachine pointed out... make sure you are using thermal paste and that the heat sink is seated correctly, and the CPU fan is spinning.

I ran into this problem myself with a Arctic Freezer 7 Pro... those things are a headache to get properly mounted for full contact.

[srpeters18]

But don't use too much thermal paste. I have seen that cause problems more than not enough. Use the recommended amount. I know somebody that put the whole tube on. Didn't do any good.

[acidrain]

I have had the exact same symptoms in the past from a dodgy power supply....

[Pablo 54]

As pointed out by Kougar and Enigmachine, chances are your CPU is starting to cook. What heat sink are you using? One other item, you probably already checked this but the DHX may be loose on your memory. I have read a few postings at the Corsair Forums about this: http://www.asktheramguy.com/v3/showthread.php?p=334897#post334897
Are you using all 4 slots for the memory or 2 with 2GB each?

Paul

[IxFxI]

Wow thank you all for your comments..

Last night after i posted this, i decided to call XFX and see what one of their technicians would say. (they're not in china too)
He said the exact same thing you all have said.
I told him that i dont really remember seeing any theral grease on there but since this is my first computer building project, i was not really looking for any. So i just popped in the cpu and put the fan on top and was getting those problems (the board automatically shut off when it got to a certain temp.)

He said that I should get some arctic silver 5 the most popular thermal grease and put some on the cpu and heat sink/fan

Drove up to Microcenter and was talking to the guy there who said that OCZ just came out with a thermal grease better than the arctic silver. I said sweet ill take this one.

I got home and immediately applied it very cautiously squirting out a dot about 3/4 of a dime size and putting a very small dot on the heat sink. Clamped it in with the ****ty ass turn screws (note im using everything stock) and booted up perfectly with no shutting down in 40 seconds.

I have learned a very good lesson that sometimes you can just get buy with stock parts but through trial and error it is all fixed and i am very happy.

I really appreciate all of you coming on here to help me out>
@Pablo:
My ram is working perfect with it but thanks for the link..

I have one more problem though. I have only 1x2GB stick in right now and when i put the other 2gb stick in slot 2, the computer will boot but with no video signal whatsoever.

Does anyone know how this can be fixed, like maybe a simple bios upgrade or a jumper somewhere or a bios setting????
This is the only problem i have left..
Thanks guys

[srpeters18]

Go to the manufacturers website or check the package for the correct voltage settings. Your mobo probably set it to 1.8v automatically but 2x2gb sticks most likely won't run with that. You just need higher voltage.

[Xero (1)ne]

Try putting it in the next slot over. They have to be in the same colored slots and sometimes thier right next to each other, and sometimes thier alternating.

[Methious]

Did you try downloading UBCD and booting to it and running Memtest86 on your ram to see if one was throwing errors? You'd test one stick at a time. If they test clean then it's:

1.Wrong voltage on the ram
2.Wrong slots the ram is in (shouldn't be, would just not run in dual channel)
3.Voltage on the chipset needs to be bumped up, 4 gig is a little hard on some systems, so bump up NB,SB voltages one notch and see if that helps.