New comp problems

[finity5]

My friend just put together a new system...
Athlon XP 2600+
512mb pc2700
Radeon 9600 Pro
Soyo AMD mobo w/ Via KT600 (at least I think so... not sure, I'm not an AMD person http://forums.massassi.net/html/biggrin.gif)
WD 120gb hd
350w Antec PSU
Anyway thats about all the main components. The problem hes having is weird. When we put it together for the first time, nothing happened at all. So we tried again a few times. Once in a while, we were able to get past POST, but then it would just hang, no HD activity, nothing. He had a generic 300w psu, so I thought he might be overloading the PSU cause he has got quite a few case fans and a few lights. We got the 350 Antec, figuring that would fix it but it didnt. After we installed that and turned it on, it gave us the POST, but all the colors were messed up and there were funky lines all over. Now it just doesn't do anything on boot.

We tried everything I can think of, even things that you woulnd't think would be causing this. I removed all his pci cards, tried a different hard drive, video card. I double checked hookups, for backwards plugs on IDEs ect. We sat there for 2 hours today, with no luck at all. It is really bugging me, because I just look into his case, and I know that everything is right, so I just do not know what to do now. Any ideas, similar problems?

[spud]

I know you mentioned trying different hard drives and video cards, but did you try swapping out the RAM? Either by replacing it in that machine with some different RAM, or trying the RAM in another computer? I don't fully remember what the symptoms are for bad memory, but it's always worth a shot if you haven't tried it already.

Sometimes there are options in the motherboard settings that can wreak havoc with a system if they're unsupported by the system's components (improper timings for RAM, features unsupported by the CPU or other components, etc.) Did you try resetting the CMOS to see if it makes a difference? If it's possible, did you try using another CPU in the mainboard? It could be that there's a problem with the mainboard itself, like if someone mishandled it in a shipment and caused damage to the board's components. Uh... that's all I can think of at the moment.

[finity5]

I tried reseting the CMOS, didn't help. I thought about the RAM before, but whenever I have had a RAM problem before, I got a checksum error on POST. I'll try to find some to replace his current stick and we'll give that a shot.