No post problem.

[belgolas]

Well I am building a second comp for lan games. And I have everything hooked up. I press the power button and it starts, monitor gets video signal but nothing on screen and then after about 2 seconds it shuts down. Then it automatically starts up again. Then shuts down. Then starts up. All on its own.

[chrisk]

What mobo is it? Problem booting usually means Ram or power supply. Could also be video card or cpu.

Double check all your connectors and try 1 stick of ram in multiple slots first. Good thing is you have another rig to use to try swapping. Try a stick of ram from your other rig as well.

[chrisk]

Also wouldn't hurt to list the components of your second machine that won't start.

[belgolas]

Giga-byte GA-P35-DS3L
Q6600
G.SKILL F2-6400CL4D-2GBHK PC2-6400 2GB 2X1GB DDR2-800 CL4-4-3-5
Palit 9800 GT
Western Digital 500 GB
Sata DVD burner from LG.

I have tried with no ram and still same problem.

[3.0charlie]

Clear CMOS. And that G-Skill has some very aggressive timings. Probably needs more volts.

[chrisk]

I was wondering if you had a Gigabyte...my Gigabyte has done something similar...when the board boots and the settings are bad the mb will reboot itself and then restart. Monitor light will come on but no messages...blank screen and the computer shuts off and then comes on again.

Try one stick of Ram in a slot, and then clear cmos. Keep doing this in each of the ram slots (I have seen a post somewhere where a Gigabyte engineer said to put the one stick in the third slot but I have never had to do this).

Do this with your Gskill ram and then the ram from your other rig too

[belgolas]

Well I tried a bunch of stuff including re seating the heatsink. And to my amazement was some non-electrically conductive tim on the bottom of the CPU!

[chrisk]

What kind of TIM were you using? If it isn't conductive it needs to be cleared off the socket as well since it will block the signals to the appropriate cpu connection. If its conductive and you tried to boot you might have a bigger problem...

Not sure the best way to get the TIM out of the socket. Obviously there's 99% iso alcohol but I never had to get the stuff off a bottom of a cpu or a socket.

[belgolas]

The TIM was MX-2

[chrisk]

Doesn't look like it is conductive.

Some tips in this thread may give you some ideas on how to clean the stuff off the bottom of your cpu:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/24...00-killed-help

Basically, the guy says to use isoprophyl alcohol (not rubbing...get the 99% stuff) and use a toothbrush to clean off the bottom of the cpu. Hopefully it has not gotten inside the socket.