okay thanks again for the help crashman... very helpful.
Well I will be buying a p4 this week along with a new motherboard and ram. Got my new Antec TrueControl550w yesterday, hooked it and the computer still froze. I was still getting low Core voltages of about 1.62 so I increased the voltage in the bios to 1.70 but this only increased the ACTUAL core voltage to about 1.66. But this didn't do anything, the computer still froze. And last night with the new PSU sometimes it woudln't even boot to windows, so times it would just freeze before getting to windows xp pro. I would have to keep hitting the reset button until I got into windows, and then it would still freeze sometimes while starting to load my startup programs in windows. After a few more tries I finally got into Windows and was able to use the computer for a little while, but it eventually froze again. Then I really bad thing happened... and I think it's my stupid fault. On the Antec 550w it has a Fan monitoring cable which you can monitor the fan speeds of the Power Supply and the other case fans which you plug into the "Fan Only" power connectors of the PSU. Well I located the "Fan 2" connector on the Abit SE6 motherboard and while the computer was running I plugged the fan cable into it. Lucky I didn't get zapped. Well I was in Windows while I did this and nothing happened. Motherboard Monitor told me the other fans where at 0 RPM. So I thought let me try the "Fan 3" connector on the motherboard now. So that's what I did and still nothing. The only fan that MBM 5 picked up was my CPU fan which was plugged into the "Fan 1" connection on the motherboard. This fan was at around like 4200 RPM's I believe. Well here is where the problem came. I said, let me restart the computer and go into the Bios and look at the fan speeds there. Maybe MBM isnt' reporting the right fan speeds to me. So I went ahead and did this and still no fan speeds. Well while I was in the Bios I stupidly was trying to connect the Fan monitoring cable again to the "Fan 2" port on the motherboard, and I think I misaligned the pins in the fan cable to the pin on the motherboard connector and all of a sudden the computer made a not so nice noise and the screen went black. Then the computer started to make this loud speaker noise that I have never heard before. So then I said "Oh SH%$##$" I must of maybe fried my motherboard or something. So I turned the power off on the back of the PSU and then turned it back on and my computer's Power button wouldn't even work. I pressed it and nothing happened. So I then disconnected the power cable from the PSU for about 2 seconds and then re-connected it again and hit the Power Button on the computer and it turned on. Well it turned on and the screen stayed black so I had no video and I could hear that it didn't boot fully. I was going through the Memory test I think but then nothing, it would just sit there and do absolutely nothing, no video, no harddrive spinning like as if it was processing something, nothing at all, just the sound of the fans. It was like a brain dead computer. So now I think I really broke it even if it broken before. I feel like such an idiot for trying to connect that damn fan cable while the computer was running and it was so late at night I didn't even think about shorting something out. But anyway, I didn't smell any oder or anything like that, it just simpily made a nasty computer internal speaker noise and then went to a black screen. What do you think my stupid ass managed to do to my system? If I only fired the motherboard and CPU I don't really care because I am just going to build my new p4 now anyhow.. it's about time. What I am worried about is that I might of fried all the components in the system and maybe even did damage to the new Antec PSU ? What do you think?
So with that all being said, I took the motherboard and CPU out of the computer last night, and just threw it in my closet for now. I left all the other components in the PC case and now will have to order new p4 stuff. So I suppose this thread is a couple questions... first off what I possibly did to my PC and if I could of damanged everything inside, and 2nd question is, now that it doesn't work I want to know what you would recommend I buy for a new p4 CPU, Ram, and motherboard. I was thinking along the lines of the Abit IS7 or Asus P4P800 for the motherboard and maybe the p4 2.4c for the CPU, not sure on the Ram yet.. but probally either Corsair or Kingston HyperX... what do you think I should go with. I will take the adice from somebody that has already probably been down this road and knows of the best components for overclocking, etc. because I plan to overclock my new p4. And I will probably need a better heatsink and fan if I overclock so if you know of a good one let me know. I don't want to get into water-cooling.
Thanks Crashman and the other folks here.. I really appreciate all your help.
My system:
P3 850mhz (100fsb), 512 Micron PC133, Abit SE6, IBM Deskstar 75gxp (60 gig @ 7200rpm), Hercules 3D Prophet 2 GTS (64 meg), SB Live MP3, Pioneer 16x DVD, Asus 45x CD-Rom