Typical non-booting PC case?

[TitanDiddly]

My friend built a PC, and it having trouble getting to to stay on. It will power on for 3 sec, then shut off just like power was cut. I went over the basics, stripping it to barebones, reseating components, nothing seemed to help. Anything I might have overlooked?

 

[Shortass]

What are the components inside, and what is the PSU? I don't know much about the problems as I've yet to build, but it seems that it may not have sufficient power to boot up.

 

[TitanDiddly]

Originally posted by: Shortass
What are the components inside, and what is the PSU? I don't know much about the problems as I've yet to build, but it seems that it may not have sufficient power to boot up.

MSI board, 2500+, Radeon 9000(no ext. power needed), 128mb of RAM(eep). Everything else is disconnected. Nothing shows on the monitor. The PSU is brand new with a $100 case.

 

[Regs]

If you are not able to even POST or heat beeps; Sounds like your Heat Sink Fan is not seated right on the socket or the CPU is not seated correctly.

 

[TitanDiddly]

Originally posted by: Regs
If you are not able to even POST or heat beeps; Sounds like your Heat Sink Fan is not seated right on the socket or the CPU is not seated correctly.

That's what I suspected as well, we wanted to see if there was anything obvious that was missed.

Also, I forgot to mention that we already cleared the CMOS.

 

[hippocritical]

Originally posted by: PhasmatisNox
MSI board, 2500+, Radeon 9000(no ext. power needed), 128mb of RAM(eep). Everything else is disconnected. Nothing shows on the monitor. The PSU is brand new with a $100 case.

Eep indeed. It's my system we're having trouble with, here's the full parts list (don't laugh):

MSI KT4 Ultra
AMD 2500+ with the retail HS [held together with Arctic Silver Ceramique]
Radeon 9000 Pro 128Mb (I think 128)
128 Mb Generic DDR2100
Turbocase X-Alien (My little brother has an alien obsession)
Turbolink "Switching Power Supply" (420W max) [temperature controlled with 2 fans]
Quantum Fireball 30Gb [single IDE cable]
CD-RW [Master]
CD [slave]

 

[Harvey]

Since you're using Arctic Silver Ceramique, did you remember to remove the thermal tape on that retail HS/F? Then, you should only use a very thin layer of thermal compound. A thicker layer actually impedes heat transfer and can cause thermal shutdown.