Biostar TForce550 Problem

[Fish]

Last week I purchased the Athlon X2 3600+/Biostart TForce550 combo,
with 1GB of A-Data DDR2 800 RAM. I installed the new hardware and did
a fresh reinstall of Windows XP Home, but when I started the torture
test in Prime95 the system shut down. No BSOD, no restart, it just
powered off. I booted back into Windows, and this time immediately
launched Biostar's hardware monitoring software. Carefully watching
temperature and voltages, I again launched Prime95. After about 4
minutes, the voltage on the 12V rail plummeted and the system shut
down again. I assumed that my power supply was either faulty or too
weak for my new system, so today I went out and purchased a brand new
Ultra X-Finity 600W power supply with dual 12V rails that totaled
38A. Installed the power supply, booted into Windows, opened Prime95,
and the system promptly shut down. Is this a motherboard problem?
RAM? CPU? Any insight would be appreciated.

Thanks,
-Hukuis

 

[kony]

Last week I purchased the Athlon X2 3600+/Biostart TForce550 combo,
with 1GB of A-Data DDR2 800 RAM.

Please concisely list all major system components. # of
drives, video card, etc

I installed the new hardware and did
a fresh reinstall of Windows XP Home, but when I started the torture
test in Prime95 the system shut down. No BSOD, no restart, it just
powered off. I booted back into Windows, and this time immediately
launched Biostar's hardware monitoring software. Carefully watching
temperature and voltages, I again launched Prime95. After about 4
minutes, the voltage on the 12V rail plummeted and the system shut
down again.

What PSU were you using at this point? What was it's rated
12V capacity... if it's using split rails, please include
all info, not just a total as you did below.

The curious part is that if the 12V rail dropped too low,
the PSU might shut down but it should happen far too quickly
for you to observe the change in the monitoring software
first. What were the exact voltages observed and the time
interval between initial decrease in voltage and shutdown,
and what was the last/lowest voltage observed?

Is it possible your PSU was one with an overly aggressive
fan throttling such that it ran the fan too slow to keep PSU
cool, possibly that in conjunction with poor case cooling?

Another thought is that it might not have been the dropping
12V rail that shut it off, rather it was just coincidence
that it was low and it shut off due to temp. Check your
bios and the monitor software for a temp shutdown setting
and compare that to the temps you were seeing.

I assumed that my power supply was either faulty or too
weak for my new system, so today I went out and purchased a brand new
Ultra X-Finity 600W power supply with dual 12V rails that totaled
38A.

Frankly I am not too happy with the Ultra quality and rating
system, but nevertheless it should have enough 12V current
to power what you have described thus far, unless you have a
power hungry gaming video card and even then, it is not so
large a power consumer outside of 3D mode as with a Prime95
test.

Installed the power supply, booted into Windows, opened Prime95,
and the system promptly shut down. Is this a motherboard problem?
RAM? CPU? Any insight would be appreciated.

Check the temp settings as I'd mentioned previously, and
provide more detail about specific voltages and time
intervals. Try shutting off the hardware monitor software
and rerunning the Prime95 test... does it then still shut
off? When it shuts off do you ever have to unplug the PSU
from AC power to get it started again? If not, reexamine
the bios settings for shutdown thresholds, and if any temps
are set very low, (as they often are set to a default of the
very lowest setting possible which is a bit too aggressive,
IMO, even if one doesn't want their system running any
hotter than that, they may still not want unnecessary
shutdown even before the system is near being instable)
adjust them upwards.

You might also check Biostar's website for any seemingly
related bios updates.