PSU problem with my first build

[uncleezno]

So with the help of all you guys, I ordered a good bunch of parts, and set off yesterday to build my first desktop. Everything went well, except that the power kept cutting out. Sometimes it wouldn't boot at all, sometimes it would turn off while booting, and when I was able to have it up long enough to start installing vista, it would turn off.

Turns out I had some risers incorrectly placed, and they were shorting the board. Took everything out, fixed the risers, and Vista installed, and I installed a bunch of software.

Now I'm finding it turns itself off after being up for 10-15 minutes. Just randomly dies. I don't think it's shorting anymore - should I RMA the PSU? It's an antec earthwatts 500, and my mobo is a gigabyte ga-p35-ds3r, rev 2.1.

Thanks. Here's hoping I don't have to RMA my first PSU ever, what a pain in the butt : )

 

[Doclife]

What memory are you using and is it set to the correct voltage ? Some non Jedec standard memories required that the voltage be set at 2.0-2.2V instead of the default 1.8V.

Another thing thing you can try. Revision 2.1 of that mobo has a new power saving feature DES (Dynamic Energy Saving) that only feed the necessary power to the CPU as the load is changing (i.e not all power phases will be turned on at the same time all the times). This is a new feature so I wouldn't be surprised that it is buggy. Try to disable that power saving feature and see if the problem go away.

http://www.tweaktown.com/artic...er_detailed/index.html

 

[DSF]

Do you have (or does a friend have) a PSU you could test it out with? If you plug in a known-good PSU and you still have the problem, you'll save yourself the trouble of RMAing a perfectly good unit.

 

[uncleezno]

Jesus christ, I figured out was wrong. On a hunch I thought the processor might be too hot, so I dloaded coretemp and boy was I right! My heatsink was incorrectly secured on one side, and the Q6600 was overheating! I'm glad I wasn't trying to throttle this thing! I took everything out again, fixed the heatsink, and now we're gravy. No RMA : )