Never building a box again! Please advise! MSI mobo, AthlonM 2500+...

I have had a 6 month long nightmare of my own incompetance in attempting to build this box... This weekend I FINALLY got it up and going.

MSI Delta2 mobo
Mobile Athlon XP 2500+
1gb "Ramses" PC3200 from buyaib.com
my old Radeon 8500 128
other stuff that has no bearing on this issue...

Basically, i bought the athlon mobile to try some MILD overclocking. killed a cpu, mobo, had bad ram, nothing wanted to go right. so this time i was super ultra clean-room careful, and didn't kill anything on the install, so i shut down and loaded all my peripherals and such, actually installed XP, and it was up and running for about 2 days. spend many many many reboots playing with clock settings, and for some reason it would not run stable with the FSB at 200mhz and a multiplyer higher than 8.5. odd, as the chip is supposed to run at 1850 or so mhz. when i tried 10x190, it would work!

but that's not the issue, since it was flaking a bit at 10x190, so i backed down the multiplier. only this time, no POST! the diagnostic LED bracket from MSI hangs when it gets to memory check. so i booted with no DIMMS, and I do get the Award Bios' long beeps for bad/missing ram. so i tried 2 different spare dimms that i know work, and still no post, still hangs on the memory check... think i killed my memory controller? is there such a possibility? I have not yet torn out all components and whatnot as i haven't had time, but looking for ANY suggestions!! And yes, i cleared CMOS. many many times...

thanks in advance!

 

Could be that your power supply isn't enough or just a crappy one and it's now starting to show. What do you have (brand and wattage)?

 

Ahhhhhh, good idea!! Mine is a crapola generic 400w, very flimsy feeling. My roommate has a Powmax (I think) laying around, very nicely built unit, I will try that tonight... pray for me!

 

Do you think I may have done any permanent damage due to crappy PSU? I am not sure if the CPU is still good or not - but doesnt a dead/fried CPU usually result in the power switch not actually working to power on the system? ie, if the CPU is shot, would the boot process even get to the point of a memory check, beeping due to missing DIMMS, etc? thanks!

 

crappy power supplies can damage literally any part on your system, that's why I spent 3x as much getting an antec over a cheapy generic. Usually the heavier the unit, the cleaner the power it produces because it uses many more parts and better parts to supply a stable power rail.

 

Tried the good PSU. No dice.

She's dead, jim.

And I can't afford to try any more BS with this... i'm going to move any parts from it that I can use into my other box, and then what with the moving and the car repair I have no money, and I will slowly save up for a socket 939 mobo, cpu, and PCIe vidcard.

Sigh =(