Boot for 3-4 Seconds and Turn off

Armo

a buddy of mine has just built a new AM2 system using the Asus M2N-SLI Deluxe. he says that when he hits the power switch the machine comes on for abour 3-4 seconds and then powers off. Im gonna go to his house after work but i wanted to see if anyone had some insight into the problem.

he says that if you hit the power switch, then while its sitting there inside the 3-4 second span of time, that if you hit the reset switch the machine will actually post and come up like normal.

does anyone have any experiance in this sort of problem? like i said i havent gotten a chance to see the machine myself as of yet.

Armo

OK after dreging the net here are my findings

this is NOT a localized issue. this is happening to people all over the net. the fix seems to be, clear the CMOS in order to get the machine to boot. then update the bios to the newest version.

it appears to be a problem with the AM2 X2's and the older bios, but thats just from what ive read.

http://agw.bombs-away.net/showthread.php?p=761275

Good news. Looks like I've been able to resolve the issue.

First, I was able to go onto the Asus forums and found a thread that corroborated the problem I was having. But no solutions were offered.

I decided to double-check that I had the latest version of the BIOS. When I had used the Asus Update utility it had said something like no compatible files were available on their servers. I took this to mean that there were no new updates and I had the latest version. I dug deeper and realized that I did indeed have an older version of the BIOS. So I downloaded the file manually and used the Asus Updater's update from a local file feature. Rebooted and that seems to have done the trick.

Moreover, I had notice before that while the BIOS had been showing the correct CPU, it was showing it as running at 2000MHz. After the update, it is now running at the correct 2200MHz. Also, I had reported before that my RAM was supposed to be running at 800MHz-4-4-4-12-2T-2.1v. But when I had tried to make those settings before the update it would not POST. Well, now it does. And finally, the windows shut down problem seems to be fixed as well.

Ok, so it was an obvious(maybe) fix. Once again I've been made an ass by assuming.

Well, I guess that puts this thread to rest. I'm off to go spread the word on the Asus forums.
Well,

http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?SLanguage=en-us&id=20060730044653010&board_id=1&model=M2N-SLI%20Deluxe&page=1&count=17

OK, maybe you've already figured this out, but in case anyone is still having this problem, it was easily fixed by updating to the latest BIOS version(0304).

I'm really not a complete idiot. Normally, when building a new system or installing a new MB, the first thing I do is update to the latest BIOS. In this case, I was relying on the Asus Update Utility to take care of that. When I selected the Update from the Internet option, it came back with a message that I interpreted to mean that there were no new updates and I had the latest version.

Anyway, long story short, I downloaded the latest BIOS version and updated using the "update from a file" option. Now everything is running great.

profdlp

Three guesses:

1) The PSU is barely up to the task. When everything comes on all at once it overloads the system, leading to blettttt. By hitting the reset switch you are restarting some components while other components remain powered, thereby spreading out the peak load on the PSU a bit.

2) You may need to set a delay on HD spinup in the BIOS. This fits in with item #1.

3) The CPU fan detection in the BIOS is "protecting" him by shutting down the system because the CPU fan appears to be spinning too slowly. By hitting the reset button you allow it a little more time to come up to speed.