Hard Drive gone cannot boot into xp

[Parnasas]

Greetings all.

Have winxp pro installed on a ASUS p5n32-sli deluxe mobo, two gigs of ram, Pentium 3.0 dual core precessor and ultra 550 power suplly. Video card is G-Force GTX-KO. Hard drive is WD Raptor 74 gig SATA. Use COMCAST Mcafee for firewall, privacy and anti-virus. Check for updates and virus scan DAILY. Ok, so I don't have a life. Also have Ewido and Counter spy and run them daily also.

Computer working great since build Feb 2006. Performed following steps in order listed to test an identical raptor 74.

1. Blew compter out with compressed air.

2. Removed ram

3. Removed CPU fan

4. Removed my hard drive

5. Cleaned CPU and fan heat sink with elecitrical circuit cleaner

6. Applied Cable Connection Silver Artic 3 Thermal compound to CPU and fan heat sink

7. Re installed RAM

8. Removed hard drive cage from case and removed base of cage to make HD install less complicated next time:) (Now I am sure you are alll asking why this moron did not fix cage the first time---see word moron and why did I go to the trouble this time....well trying to kill two birds with one moron:))

9. New drive discovered on boot seemed ok

10. Reinstalled my old hd, checked connections and cables and booted into Windows XP Pro. All seemed well

11. About one hour later after computer started, it shut down. Power gone

12. Rebooted compuer into safe mode, checked system, no hardware conflicts and computer shut down again

13. Next time I booted Computer went to sign on screen, I signed in, went to desk top and computer died again.

14. Thought maybe heat issue so rebooted and stayed at sign-on screen and stayed and stayed and stayed. Signed in went into desktop...down again.

15. Repeated 14 several times.

Tried to boot into safe mode, could get to sign in screen but not any further. Removed hard drive and put another identical hard drive in place and attemted to do new install of xp pro. As soon as files are transfeed to hard drive...computer now shuts down. Also removed all usb devices and and disconnected DVD ROMS....situation did not change. Get to sign in screen, sign in, go to desk top and power goes again.


Thanks

[Panama Red]

I'd suspect the Ultra power supply failed. Two were tested by members of our writing staff and they both exhibited very unstable voltages. Adding the second hdd probably pushed it over the edge to failure. Replace it wtih one from our "good" list in the Sticky thread in the Gen Hdw forum.

[Parnasas]

Tested power supply and it checked out. Installed new ANTEC neo 550 anyway. By the way testing of this new one also showed operating well..

Problem persists. I need to clarify something. Had two raptor 74's installed. Removed one when problem started.

Yes I reinstllaed the raptor back to orig. config. prior to problem. Computer still dies when I try to boot into xp. Computer will run for hours at signon screen. After I sign in, computer starts to boot into windows. and shuts down.

Tried to do clean install of winxp...computer loads set up files...and shuts down again.

Thanks all in advance for your help.

[flanzig1]

The heat sink maybe installed incorrectly or the old thermal compound not cleaned of the heatsink or too much new AC3 was used. All of these condition can cause the CPU to shut down from over heating.

[chuck4456]

The heatsink could easily have a stress crack in it. The heatsink heats up and cools down, and seats itself. It actually molds itself into an exact position after a period of time. If you moved it around and didn't snap it back exactly in the same position, this could have easily happened, especially if it's been on there for a while. A stress crack will cause uneven heat distribution. I would reinspect everything.

[Parnasas]

Thanks for the help. Chuck I did as you suggested and now all seems well. Thanks