Well I am getting a sound card later, just want the basics now. So do I need that heatsink or not?mghtymouse50

If you bought a intel cpu brand new, it will come with a sink.

[QUOTE="j3ninja10"]

sounds like a ram problem.

if you have 2 sticks of ram take 1 out and try starting with just one. if that doesnt work take the 1 stick out and try the other one.

fib112

I agree. You should do this before buying a PSU for possibly no reason.

so i spent my whole evening putting this build together and when i first power it up it acts as though it will boot but then turn off, then try to boot again and over and over, once in a blue moon it'll actually get to the bios. looking inside i notice the cpu fan doesnt start up right away but eventually starts if the pc actually gets to the bios screen.

build specs are as follows:

Antec Sonata III 500 with built in 500w power supply with 80% efficiency

GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3P LGA 775 ATX motherboard

Intel core 2 quad 8200

Asus Radeon 4850

Western Digital 640 gb harddrive

Samsung 22x dvd burner black SATA model

Corsair 4gb RAM

Thanks for any help and suggestions

Sackettmyer

Here are some suggestions:

CPU overheat.   heat sink maybe installed incorrectly.

Memory.  You may have faulty mem stick(s). OR, If you did  not buy all the memory(supposing that its not just a 4gb stick) as a kit, check th CAS latency. Sometimes even the same type of memory can have different latency's

Power. Check your motherboard manual for minumin PSU requirements. Some manuals have charts that include components on power requirements. OR, PSU is faulty. check all conections[ 12v, main power, video card if appicable]

I had a similar problem with an asus striker extreme board. It ended up being a voltage setting in BIOS. Since I could not access Bios, I ended up RMA'in the Board.

Good luck to ya.

I just wanted to get really close but I guess it's too expensive. Yeah?siskokidd

Not really. I bought an evercool kit back in 2004 for my first build. I still use it on my 3rd PC. It cost me $100 at the time, now you can get those for under $50. I did buy a new waterblock to increase performance. When set up right, watter cooling WILL excede air in heat disbursement. I always do a water/air combo on my boxes. Watercool the CPU, and provide major airflow for the other components.Since the CPU is not generating hot air inside the case, the memory and gpu's are easily cooled with air.