Hello,

I have a 1-week-old custom-built PC that since this morning doesn't post anymore. After power has been turned on, the lights come on for a second and it shuts down again. About 3-4 seconds later, it automatically tries to turn on again, just to switch off again almost immediately. The machine had some quirks the first couple of days but not to this extent. A video of the power-up problems can be seen here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0KKvsCeOPc

I had flashed the bios with a new version the day before, but the system booted multiple times without problems thereafter. Attempting to reset the CMOS unfortunately had no effect at this point. Disconnecting all devices, removing the video card and the memory sticks does not influence the behavior of the machine. No error beeps can be heard.

Here is the configuration of the machine:
GA-X48-DS5
Intel Q9450
Gigabyte PSU22-LB G-Power II Pro
Corsair Dominator 2x2GB DDR2-1066 EPP Kit (TWIN2X4096-8500C5DF)
Chieftec GPS-550AB 550W
Seagate 3500320 AS 500GB (2x)
EVGA GF8800GTS

Would appreciate it very much if somebody could give me some advice.

Regards,
Claude

Sorry, can't watch your video from work.
Check for shorts. Unplug and replug in all devices.
Sounds like a power supply problem to me.

Top Tier PSU:
http://www.tomswiki.com/page/Tiere [...] ngs?t=anon

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forum [...] p?t=108088

http://www.jonnyguru.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1460

Silent PSUs
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article699-page1.html

AMD Certified PSUs (Single+Crossfire):
http://ati.amd.com/online/certifiedpsu/index.html

Certified SLI-Ready Power Supplies
http://www.slizone.com/object/slizone_build_psu.html

Could the motherboard be fried then? Since the board has a dual bios, shouldn't it have automatically copied the backup bios back? I guess I might need to remove the board from the case to make sure there are not shorts...

My initial response would be to try a quality power supply. It seems likely that the one you have has died given the very little I can find on Chieftec power supplies. They don't make the list of recommended power supplies on any level, as a matter of fact they don't even make Tier 5 which is the not recommended list. As far as I can determine, they don't make power supplies, so they just stick their label on a brand X cheap power supply built in China.

To my own defense, I didn't select this power supply but the one I picked was out-of-stock, so they slapped another one in there I should have been more careful though and I just hope that the board is still alive.

Only flash you BIOS if there is a problem with it.

Chieftec sucks. And it also looks like your ram is in the wrong slots, although I doubt that is your problem. Buy a PSU tester or have a shop test it.

On a second look do you even have tha ram in?????

Is your case speaker hooked up?

I had this exact problem, sent the board back, had it tested, found falty and got replacement. Problem solved.