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Help, upgrading CPU, system reboots repeatedly

D

danl

n00b
Joined
Apr 26, 2005
Messages
9
Hi, I just bought a new retail P4 3.0E prescott, and I popped it into the my abit IC7-max3 motherboard and turned it on. At first I see the video card info, then the system tries to post, but immediately reboots. It does this over and over indefinitely. Sometimes it gets further in the post and I see that the memory and CPU are recognized and fsb are correct. Sometimes I can get into the bios. But its consistently rebooting over and over.

System specs:

Abit IC7-MAX3 (bios flashed to latest version 18)
2x Corsair ValueSelect 512 PC3200
XFX GeForce 6600GT
Ultra X-Connect 500W PSU
Hard drive, dvd burner, etc.

I've tried, reseating CPU, and reapplying thermal paste. I've reseat memory and video card, removed one memory module to run in single channel mode. I even plugged in an older 330w PSU.

Getting desperate. Any suggestions?
 
Did you have the same setup working with a different processor? If not try another cpu.
With out more info I could only guess?

Could be a bad processor, motherboard, or maybe just a motherboard bios upgrade is needed.

More info would be helpful.
 
Could be a weak power supply. Remember, prescotts pull crazy power on the 12v rail. If you p/s 12v is lower than 15A I would find a stouter one.
 
Well I had a 1.6a northwood. But because I had alot of crashes with that, I thought that I had burned out that processor, which is why I upgraded to the new 3.0E in the first place.

Anyway long story short, I think its definitely a power related issue, since every attempt to boot freezes and reboots at different places. Ie sometimes it would reboot before even POST. Other times it might POST partially then reboot. And other times, it might boot all the way to windows then reboot, abeit rarely. The power supply is new, so I can only conclude that its the motherboard's voltage regulators. Ie I think the motherboard isn't correctly able to supply the new power hungry 3.0E with enough juice to keep it alive.

What I did was pull out the 3.0E and put back in the 1.6, and it boots up. That basically proves that its something between the motherboard not liking the CPU.

Anyway, I've read around, and there seems to be some conflicting reports on the Ultra X-Connect 500W. Most reviews I've found and read online say its a great modular power supply. But most forum posts I've read say that its essentially a doorstop, that its a rebadge of some cheap company's PSU.

Whats the consensus here on those power supplies? I admit I got it at a bargain price of $10, after rebates. But it was originally $99, and the original reviews spoke very highly of it.
 
1) Rule out the hard drive and test for bad clusters.
2) You might need to re-install windows being the cpu is a big upgrade from your older 1.6 northwood.
3) Check your memory with memtest, booting from a floppy or cd.

If all of the above checks out ok. Then I would start looking at the power supply or motherboard.
 
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