NEED HELP! Major problems, I'm Exhausted and broke.

[Peter Venkman]

Guys I need major help. I have been working on this build for over a week and I can't get it to work. I have tried two motherboards, two cpu's, and two sets of ram. No combination of the parts I have will boot and I can't figure out what is bad.

Here are my parts
2x1Gb corsair dominator 1066 ram
2x2Gb G.Skill 1066 ram
Asus P5Q motherboard
Gigabyte GA-EPU43-DS3L motherboard
TWO E8400 CPU's
Visiontek 4870
Corsair 750TX PSU
Xigmatek HDT-S1283 Heatsink

I have tried booting outside of my case with a motherboard, CPU, heatsink, one stick of ram, video card, and my PSU and no combination of the above parts works. Every time I jump the power leads with a screw driver to power the system on the heatsink fan, video card fan, and PSU fan start to spin, but right after they start they stop and the computer shuts down. It is almost an instant on off situation.
I figured it could be my PSU now that I have tried TWO of every other key part so I bought a Coolmax PS-224 PSU tester. When I use this tester the power supply turns on and gives good readings for every voltage accept my +5VSB which gives me a reading of "LL" for no or extremely low voltage detected. Could this be my problem? Could I have multiple dead parts? Am I experiencing good parts that are just incompatible? Does the motherboard need more than just the heatsink fan plugged in to run or will it power off because no other fans are plugged in?
What really has me in a jam is that the computer acts like it wants to start up. In the very beggining a week ago I tried to boot this for the first time with two sticks of the G.Skill. It failed and I tried with just one stick of G.Skill. It worked and I thought I was home free, but after I powered my system off and removed two case fans it would not start again and since then I have not been able to make this system boot.

I am just about at my witts end here. As you can see I can almost build two computers but no matter what parts combination I get the same results. I really appreciate the previouse help that I got here and I thank everyone who replys to this thread to help make this bane of my computing life a thing of the past.

[shadowpr]

Seeing as how you tried just about two of everything, I would think the psu would be a logical next step.

[Strider]

I agree it sounds like your psu and I would get another new psu or use one that you know is good, before trying anything else. You've seem to have run into some very bad luck, but once you solve this problem you'll be home free. One other thing that might be happening is make sure you are testing the motherboard/cpu/memory on a non-conductive surface and/or make sure nothing is shorting it out when you test it.

[Peter Venkman]

Thanks for the fast replys guys.

When I built this comp out of box I did it on top of a motherboard box and a sheet of cardboard that came in the box. How will I know if something is shorting out when I test it and what surfaces conduct and what ones won't?

As for the PSU it would seem to be a logical step but how can I know that is the problem before I go and throw away more money on this thing. Do any of you know where I can figure out if my failed +5VSB reading for the PSU is the problem or not?

[shadowpr]

Cardboard is perfectly safe to do the out of case build on. It's what we actually recommend.

I it was me, I would buy a psu locally if possible, or from where ever you get parts from. Use it to test, and then I would return the products I didn't need for a refund. If it ends up being the original psu, you can then either return that for a refund, or a replacement.

[wz2p7j]

Do you have a "KGU" (known good unit) you can swap some parts from? i.e. another computer that is working? Then you know the parts you are using are good. Although some of the KGU parts might not be compatible, I would think at least the power supply should be.

Chris

[Peter Venkman]

And the saga of pain comes to a close! I got a new Antec 850W unit which tested good on all voltages and sure enough the computer booted on the first try! Thanks a lot for all the help that has been given to me over the last two or so weeks guys!

[shadowpr]

Glad you got it up and going.

[PhaseInertia]

I currently have the same problem as you, I've just upgraded parts for a new build and experiencing the same situation. I'll run a few troubleshoots and if all fails I'll have to get a new PSU.