Dinosaur PC shuts down mid-boot up

Alois Luong · April 1, 2020

Hi,

So I am currently trying to build a PC some may refer as prehistoric. After scavenging all the necessary parts from old/discarded computers, I built one myself. Here were the specs:

- Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-945GCM

- CPU: Intel Celeron 430

- PSU: 500W (local brand, see pic below)

- Memory: 1 stick, Transcend 2GB 800Mhz DDR2 (see pic)

- Storage: 120GB Kingston SA400S37 (taken from my current pc, used as the boot up drive, contains Windows 10)

After assembling the pc, everting worked fine. I was able to boot up and, after connecting a wireless PCI adapter, I could access the internet. However, it was incredibly slow!

I decided to make some minor upgrades to that the PC could be a little more usable. Here were the upgrades I made: (keep in mind that all of these components were either bought as second-hand or scavenged)

- Memory: 2 sticks, 2GB DDR2 KINGMAX KLDE88F-B8KU5Y

- CPU: Intel Pentium 2.66GHz 2M Processor 805 (not sure if this is the right link tho because it doesn't say pentium D on my cpu, see pic of mine below)

- Also added thermal paste (Arctic MX-4)

After re-assembling everything, I tried booting up but the pc would shut down mid-boot up. The chain of events are as follow:

1. I press the power button

2. The fans starts spinning

3. There is the usual beep

4. Boot up, BIOS appears on the screen allowing me to choose the drive to boot up from

5. Then BAM! Shut down!

(Note: sometimes it would shut down a few seconds after the power button is pressed... as I said, random)

Here's everything I tried doing so far:

- Switched power outlet

- Changed power cords

- Cleaned every components using compressed air

- Quintuple checked all of the connection

- Disconnected all of the non-essential components for boot up (in my case, the SSD and wireless PCI adapter)

- Replaced the PSU (twice)

- Re-applied new thermal paste

- Shouted at my PC

- Took out and put back in the RAM stick

- Changed the CMOS battery

- Now here's the strange part: I switched back to the Celeron and everything worked fine again.

Does this mean that the Pentium CPU is faulty in anyway? Is there any compatibility issue I've overlooked? Does my cooling system need to be upgraded?