.InHumaN

Just started building my new setup this morning and had that familiar problem of the PC starting, running for 2 seconds, then shutting itself down and rebooting itself.
Now the first time I booted it, it ran through BIOS to a option menu asking me to select "Last known good config" and other options for XP (was planning on formatting & reinstalling after I knew everything worked). But on that screen it counted down an froze on 9 seconds left. Restarted it and got the problem as above.
I've gone through everything I could think of like short circuiting, PSU problems etc and I've ruled everything out except the CPU and mobo. However when I took the board out to check for any grounding in the case, I noticed a spare gold mounting screw still left behind from my old setup, which I'm thinking was in contact with some of the circuitry on the board causing the short circuit.
I've read around and most of the time it seems short circuiting isn't fatal to the motherboard, but it's the only thing I can find that could be the cause of this problem.
If anyone can give me some advice on whether the motherboard is completely screwed or if it's reparable in some way that would be great.

Intel E2180 with Akasa AK-945 (reseated both chip and heatsink, also tried stock heatsink)
Gigabyte P35-DS3L (tried out of the case on wooden surface)
Kingston DDR2 800 CL5 (tried 1 stick, no sticks, different slots etc)
ATI HD3850 512mb DDR3 (tried with 6600gt, with and without power cable)
OCZ 600W Stealthstream (tried with 420W Tagan, to no avail)

Thanks

guyladouche

First of all, Gigabyte's P35, DS3* motherboard bios had the bug where the system would power on for a second or two, power down, then power back on again--caused by what was read as a mis-seated CPU in the slot by the sensor even if the cpu was seated properly--resolved in the F8 bios I think.

The computer freezing on the countdown you mention--i'm not sure from what you said--was this in the BIOS, or at the windows startup option, allowing for last good known config of windows (which is not in the BIOS)? If it's the windows startup countdown, then I'd lean towards a hard drive problem or installation error in the OS (perhaps something became corrupt in the hard drive just by coincidence?).

__________________
59 6f 75 20 61 72 65 20 61 20 6e 65 72 64 2c 20 61 6e 64 20 61 70 70 61 72 65 6e 74 6c 79 20 73 6f 20 61 6d 20 49

.InHumaN

The windows options screen came after the BIOS startup with an image similar to the one on the motherboards packaging, so yeah it would have been after BIOS. I still had a old install of windows on my disk which obviously wouldn't load, hence why I got that screen.
I'm just worried that since it recognized the CPU the first time round, that something happened on that first boot to cause damage. Will try updating BIOS anyway.

Froger The Third

I had a Gigabyte EP35-DS3L that did something very similar. It said the CPU was getting way past the red line- hit 101 Centigrade and then shut down. Was extremely slow, was lucky if I got to the OS install stage. Sent it back for replacement, did not get replacement though, I gave up on the build. Wish I had gotten that replacement now that I know I was not alone. I hope we can figure this out, and that Gigabyte will fix this problem.