Computer shuts down during windows installation.

[jayhojo]

Background: I just bought a ECS RS400A motherboard with P4-630 processor, new case with 350W ps, 2x512 ram. using my old drives 30G and 60G. I have reformatted both hard disks.

Problem: During the install of windows XP(UG) (when windows is 'starting') the computer turns off. It seems the cd rom slows down or stops reading (like a pause during the install) and then just shuts down. I then tried installing 98(UG) and when I had to insert my 95 disk during the install to verify previous edition, and the cdrom is accessed the computer shutdown.

I can boot from a startup disk fine. I have tried using both hd's as the boot drive, tried two different cd-rom drives.

Now as I am sitting here I am wondering if it may be a bad ps. I will have to put a meter on it and see.

Any Ideas?

Jay

 

[phreakwars]

Yes, a cheapy power supply can cause problems if you have too many devices attached to the power chain. 350 watts is kinda weak by today's standards,and unfortunately some of the COOL cases come with cheap power supplys, but it's not so much the WATTAGE that you should look at, but rather the +12V@ number that is advertised. Usually for a CPU like your using, I would recommend the power supply have a +12V@ rating of at least 20-24 with all the stuff you have hooked up to it. You could probably get by with a +12V@18 but this depends on the quality of the PS and the credibility of the manufacturer. You might wanna look at the numbers on the sticker that should be on the power supply to give you an indication of what you are getting for those 350 watts of power. If the numbers look OK, then I would first question other aspects of the parts/mb, particularly the BIOS setup, I have seen people accidently change their BIOS settings in the hopes of optimizing their machines only to incorrectly set a parimeter. Sometimes its something like video shadowing, or something like an IRQ placement, but I'm just throwing out random thoughts here, so it's kinda hard to say at the moment what the exact cause might be.
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