Computer won't boot unless stone cold: Help!

[L1Trauma]

Just bought Duron 800 mhz/MSI K7TPro2A from Monarch, installed it in my Antec case, plenty of fans. Replaced CoolerMaster with Alpha PAL 6035/Sunon 60mm fan. First boot was fine, started changing BIOS settings, warm boot was unsuccesful. Since then, the percentage of successful boots has dropped. I thought it might be from my amateur attempt to close the L1 Bridges, but cleaning the pencil/Loctite off doesn't help. Can't get it to POST 9/10 times. When it does POST, it won't boot. Temps were normal whenever the BIOS managed to come up. SmartLED indicates, most of the time, it's not even initializing the BIOS: no sync to monitor, etc. Sometimes it stops a little later (won't detect IDE drives, won't do memory test).

Did I use too much thermal grease (silicon, came from 2cooltek)? It's rather liberally applied over the whole Duron... Could that short something out?

I think I need an RMA... any advice?

 

[AC]

u should always take everyting in steps and check your work

since u already assembled your computer together, it's kinda hard to determine what is causing POST/boot to fail, so take apart your computer (everything)

• place the MOBO on something that won't conduct a charge (eg. cardboard)
• short the CMOS reset jumper
• plug in the CPU (clean with rubbing-alcohal or other non-abrasives) with little more than a paper-thin layer of grease only on the core (not the resistors and bridges)
• carefully seat the heatsink
• plug in one stick of RAM
• plug in the video card
• plug in the keyboard
• plug in the power supply
• plug in the monitor
• turn on the monitor
• to power up the system, short the power button header with a flat-head screwdriver or something else that's metal (be careful not to touch anything else on the MOBO with the screwdriver)

if that configuration doesn't POST/boot, you'll need to figure out which one of those components are failing

if it works, mess around with the CMOS settings, then start pluging in boards one by one and power up to see if it will POST

if the system passes POST, but is not booting, it is caused by either settings in the CMOS (such as IRQ distribution), or software (such as drivers)

*i assume u did a clean install of whatever OS u use

 

[lumberg]

I had something similar happen to my computer after I put it together. It would freeze while counting RAM, but never in the same place. Sometimes I could get into the BIOS, sometimes I couldn't. Even if I could it would freeze after a few seconds. It would always boot better on a hard reboot, than on a soft. I found the memory wasn't "compatible" with the mother board. What a bummer, right? I looked at it more closely and discovered the processor fan was hitting a capacitor on the motherboard. THE PROCESSOR WASN'T SEATING FULLY. The fan had a slight offset to it. After rotating the fan 180 degrees, it cleared the capacitor. From that moment on I have never had a problem with it. Turns out the memory had nothing to do with it....

Hope this helps.

AC has a good idea also