Computer shuts down

[Frioden]

I have recently had some sort of error with a newish computer I built.

Specs:

Asus P5N-D motherboard
4x1Gb sticks of ddr2 ram
700W rocketfish Power Supply
1 WD 250 Gb SATA drive
1 WD 1Tb SATA drive

The gist of it is this. My computer shuts down completely, like power supply fault shuts down (no blue screen, just off) whenever I access the hard drive on Any OS, whether it be the installed Windows & or any linux CD distro (Ubuntu, Mint, Puppy, Backtrack).

I have replaced the 400 W power supply with the new 700 W power supply.

I have replaced the Asus P5N-D board.

I have done a 4-day memtest burn-in of all the memory sticks, and done a systematic test of each of the 4 sticks in each of the 4 slots (same result).

I have swapped processors out with a different core.

All lead to the same result. Whenever I access the hard drive, almost immediately, the computer just turns off.

I have even taken the hard drives out of the bays in case there was a short in happening some where, but to no avail. And the hard drives work splendidly in any external enclosure, just not in the desktop system.


Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.


Thanks,

Frioden

[Dodge]

Guessing you tried new cables to the HD's?

Have you checked in the bios to see what the settings to shut down the pc when the temperature get to a certain temp are? Also see what the temps are running while in the bios only. You could be having a major overheating problem and accessing the HD is causing to much heat. (Just a possibility)

[Appzalien]

Just pulling this one out of my.. well you know. It seems to me that you may be experiencing a direct short when the hard drives are accessed. So what I would look for is an improper mounting screw that causes the motherboard to short to the case where its not supposed to. Each mounting hole on a mobo is designed into the basics of the board to line up with case holes even before the actual design of the electronic is put on. Sometimes the Engineers design a board that has a mounting hole they do not intend for you to use, they just dont tell you in the manual and will seldom admit it in public. The way for you to tell, is if the hole has a ring or star of solder around it, then its meant to be a ground to the case with the screw installed. And if there is no solder its not meant to be used at all. Even if you do not put a screw there, if there is a stand off bellow it, it can still short so remove it or put some black electrical tape over it.

The chances of this being your issue are like 1000 to 1, so take it with a grain of salt but tuck it away in your brain for your next build.

You also have to watch those springy things on the metal back plate you have to mount for the specific motherboard inputs/outputs, some of them have to be pulled up a little for the metal housings for the usb and audio to slide into place and if you get a metal springy thing inside a connector, it can be short trouble.