[Scottuk]

Here's the problem:

This is my first build (hopefully that's not the biggest problem). I'm using the following components:

Gigabyte MA78GM-US2H Mobo (m-ATX)
AMD Phenom II X4 940 with stock cooler
Corsair RAM (8GB, 4x2GB sticks)
Corsair 450 PSU

My problem is a consistent one, but I have no idea what the cause could be. Essentially, my computer will post, and I've gotten as far as beginning the WindowsXP install from USB.

But, it hung on me and I had to reset / restart. Upon doing that, the machine won't post (monitor won't even come out of standby) and I get one long and one short beep. This happens regardless of whether or not I'm trying to get the OS installed, it's just a question of the number of resets before it happens.

In post, all 8GB of memory are being recognized, so I have trouble believing it's a memory problem. And if the motherboard was damaged, would this thing start up at all?

The 1 long - 1 short error code was, I thought, a Mobo-RAM problem indicator, but I don't seem to be having problems with them.

One idea I had was that, during the installation of the cooler onto the CPU, I had a little trouble and had to re-seat it (the cooler, not the CPU) a couple times. Could I have messed up the paste to the point that the CPU is overheating and causing problems?

Any clues at all as to what this is? I'm desperate - need to get this machine up and running for a project, and it's frustrating to get this far and have it behaving unpredictably, and not even able to get the OS installed.

Help?

[mctw]

have you tried only using one ram stick, and changing them over. it does sound like its a ram issue.

And if you havent already, try reseting your bios.