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General discussion

System POSTing but not booting, why?

Jan 27, 2004 2:36AM PST

I'm running a pentium 4 3.0 ghz chip on an intel d865gbf board, with an ati 9800pro video card, 512 kingston dual channel ram, turtle beach santa cruz sound card, 2 WD hard drives (which have worked fine on my old pc), DVD-ROM and DVD+-RW drives. This is powered with a 380 watt power supply.

After installing this all in my new case, I turn on my computer for the first time. It POSTs fine, but when it comes time for windows to start up, my computer reboots itself. Why is it doing this? What could be malfunctioning? Thanks.

Discussion is locked

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Re:System POSTing but not booting, why?
Jan 27, 2004 2:50AM PST

wild guess your power supplys skimmpy get a 450 to help out

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Try less parts.
Jan 27, 2004 3:19AM PST
http://www20.tomshardware.com/howto/20021021/

My gut reaction is you undersized the power supply. Most lie about the Watts. Witness the above article PLUS look at their power budget.

In short, this is one item you can't skimp.

Bob
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Re:Try less parts.
Jan 27, 2004 3:25AM PST

Yea, I was told at a few comp stores my power supply that came with my case would be more than enough, but I'm gonna go pick up a 430 watt this afternoon and try that one out and see if I have better results.

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Re:Re:Try less parts.
Jan 27, 2004 3:30AM PST

the current power supply I am using is a 380w Antec. Should up'ing to a 430 watt antec be fine?

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Try less parts.... Repeat... Try less parts.
Jan 27, 2004 3:37AM PST

I can usually "sniff" out if the PSU is undersized by unplugging the CD/DVD drives, that other hard disk, a video capture card and pulling any extra sticks of RAM.

Be aware that faulty RAM can lead us down this road as quite a number of other items.

Many will feel cheated if its not the PSU and its why my response title is "Try less parts." That's up to 60 Watts less just with 3 less drives...

Next consider RESETING the CMOS values to their safest values (go ahead and flog me for not listing that one.) And try the AGP at 1 or 2X until the machine is working.

Bob

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Wait a second...
Jan 27, 2004 8:02AM PST

The HDD was in another PC? Are you trying to swap drives to a new PC? This may be the cause. XP doesn't move well.

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Re:Wait a second...
Jan 27, 2004 11:26AM PST

yep, the hdd was from another pc, and youre absolutely right about how XP hates to be moved. i reformatted it earlier today and reinstalled XP and it works fine now, thanks!