*bashes head into the wall*, ok, I'm better now, I think

I'm not sure what's wrong with my uncle's Athlon..... specs:

Mobo: MSI K7N2 Delta (Nvidia Nforce2 Chipset)
CPU: AMD Athlon 2500+
RAM: 2x 256mb Kingston Hyperx PC2700 DDR
HDD: 1 older WD 10gb drive
CDROM: an older HP 32x cdrom
PSU: it's 300 watts... I don't know the make of it, it's not labeled anywhere on the thing
Video: An AGP Geforce 4 MX440

Everything else is integrated into the motherboard..... now, here's the problem, for a few months now it's been randomly shutting itself off, and you have to flip the PSU off then back on for it to turn back on. I went to reinstall Windows on it tonight, and it's turned into a nightmare, at the same point in XP (and 2K) setup it crashes every single time, either when it asks you what drive to install to or shortly there after when it's copying files.

I've tried changing the video card, hdd, cdrom, and ram with the ones in my P4, all of which I know are fine, and none of the above fixed the problem. So, I'm down to the motherboard, cpu, and power supply. I fairly sure it's not the motherboard, I ran a few diagnostic tools on it which all said that it was fine. The BIOS reports the power supply's voltages are for the most part ok, +3.3 = 3.32, +12 = 11.85, -12 = -11.7, + 5 - +5.05 , -5 = -5.05, give or take a few tenths in either direction on all the rails. I don't have another power supply here to test with, and I don't feel like the hassle of taking the psu out of my p4 and putting it in the athlon for testing right now.

Out of desperation, I took the hdd out of the athlon, threw it in my box, restored a ghost image to it, put it back in the athlon, and windows boots up fine, but the box cuts itself off when you try to login. I've tried a different power cable, with and without a surge protector in the middle between it and the wall outlet. The only other option is the CPU, but it's temps are fine for an athlon with a stock heatsink and no case fans, 46C at idle. At this point, I'm definatly leaning towards the power supply, but is there anything I could possibly be missing?

Hey Seph,

I dunno if this even comes close to your problem over there (yours seems to be far worst - sorry :( )... But did you take notice if before the system would shut down on it's own, if you received a BSOD? This had happened to me when I went to reinstall XP on my parent's computer... I dunno why this would have happened, but after moving the RAM around, things seemed to work again...

If the system keeps cutting off on you when trying to log in - I don't think it would be a PSU issue... Did you try to, maybe, disable all the onboard stuff you are currently using? You should pull everything and start with just your CPU, vid card, RAM, and HD - and see if you can get in.

Can you try to get into safe mode to view your event logs?

Hope something I mentioned helps you out a little...

Good luck,
-SlickVic78

that's what i thought at first too when it kept shutting itself off in windows setup at the same place, right as you accept the eula in xp, and when it's copying files in 2k, and now when you get to the login screen after i restored the ghost image, i didn't think it could possibly be the power supply seeing as it does it at the same few places every time, i tried booting windows to safe mode as well and that didn't help, but no, i don't get a bsod at all, the power to everything except the mobo gets cut and it won't boot again until i turn the psu off then on, or pull the power cord for a few seconds, the way i can tell the mobo still has some power is the onboard lan's light is still lit with an ethernet cable plugged into it, i pulled both sticks of ram out of it and tried both a single stick of kingston pc3500 from my p4 and a stick of generic pc2700, neither helped, /me is rather confused, lol

Me suspects the PSU anyway... Easy to replace for a test.

I had something similar, but a bit more random, a couple of months ago. Turned out to be the PSU (Enermax). Antec did the business!

I am suspecting the PSU too.

Hmmm, at that point, when it starts copying files, it will spin up the CD-ROM motor, and also start writing to the HDD. This probably causes a sudden increase in power consumption, which could be a problem for a faulty PSU.

I never thought of it that way... Usually when you first boot up, everything spins for a few, so I'd expect it to kick out then... But then, come to think about it, everything goes off at once when you login too... Could be the reason why it is happening all the time in the same place... So you do have a valid point... May very well be the PSU Seph...

-SlickVic78

For me, the power supply is the problem

Maybe the motherboard is making a little "short circuit" and the power supply turn off the pc ;)

I would agree...PSU......

300 Watts is a little bit on the Low Side.....Modern PSU's have a Current Limit on them....

If the Juice required exceeds the Specs of the PSU...Then the PSU switches itself off to protect itself.....

Only removing and reattaching the Power Cord, gets it working again.....Had a similar problem a few months back.....Got myself a 500w PSU....Have never looked back.....

Strange... I ran my P4 system on a 200W PSU for while. It was probably unwise, but it worked fine. The only reason I resorted to a 200W PSU is because I burned out my 350W one when adding a resistor inline with the fan to make it quieter... it was a but too quiet for a while, and then made a loud 'bang' ;)