New Computer Project Can't Get Past Boot

[Mdd]

I'm having a hell of a time trying to put together a new computer. I've tried two different motherboards and two different video cards and still can't get it to boot.

Hardware:

* Fong Kai FK-603 w/ HEC-300GR power supply
* OEM K7(ATHLON)-1GHZ PGA ThunderBird W/ 256K CACHE
* 256MB PC-133 SDRAM
* KT7-RAID and Soyo KVTA Motherboards
* Western Digital Caviar 40gb 7200rpm-ata/100
* Creative Labs 3d Blaster Annihilator 2 and ATI PCI (known good)

It won't even post unless I power it off and let it sit for a few minutes. When I can get into the BIOS, usually it locks up before I can finish updating the settings. Sometimes, the screen fills with garbage. If I do try to save the settings, the screen goes blank and I have to power cycle.

The Abit board has an eval version of the BIOS but locks up when ever I try to flash it. The Soyo board has the latest BIOS.

With the Abit board, twice I was able to get it to boot off a floppy. With the Soyo board, it locks when it tries to read the floppy.

Both boards detect and report the hard drive and CD-ROM, floppy drive, memory, and processor correctly.

I've read the manuals (written by someone that doesn't speak English as a primary language), the FAQs, searched news groups and this forum. No help.

Any idea what could be causing it? A bad CPU? Faulty memory? Appreciate any suggestions...

Michael

 

[Techwhore]

It sounds like maybe a heat problem. What hs/fan are u using? It could also be the memory, but my experience with bad memory is that it just won't even POST and you're able to do that at least some of the time...

 

[fargus]

I've had a similar (almost identical) experience, and it turned out to be the heatsink not making proper contact with the CPU. I took my aftermarket heatsink and fan off, put the OEM one back on, presto. So try another one or stick some good thermal paste in there and see what happens.

 

[BadThad]

You may check that power supply too, but it really sounds like heat to me too.

Good Luck!