Computer will not boot and shuts down.

[topsax]

Hi, my name is Bob.. I could seriously use a little help.. I am an American that lives in China.. I had a nice motherboard I had saved away in the States.. I had it shipped to me with a bunch of memory.. anyway I went here in China and bought a box, Cd rom, harddrive, monitor, etc. to get it going.. I am tired of using my laptop.. Smile..

motherboard is about 3 years old... never used and bought from a reputable dealer.. CPU is an Athlon 850 B3, nothing fast by today's standards, but it is perfect for what I use it for... CPU bought used, but from a reputable dealer..

MY PROBLEM is this.. the computer tries to POST but will not boot.. Phoenix Bios.. I get 1 long beep, sometimes 1 long and 1 short and the computer shuts down.. nothing.. before I walk about 2 miles to the computer store to trade the harddrive I bought.. I have ONE question?  If the battery is dead, would that cause it to not boot?? I have no way of testing the battery but it is probably 3 years old and has been sitting in the motherboard all that time..  Or do you think I got a bad harddrive.. Quantum 20 Gig.. I have had really good luck with these..  Or do you think motherboard or bios is the problem.. Or memory, but I have tried 7 different DIMMs.. always the same..
computer fires up, the fans all start.. boom about 5 seconds later (pretty quick) I get 1 long beep and the computer shuts down..

Any thoughts or suggestions would be really appreciated..

Cheers,
Bob

[panboy]

Beep can Mean a lot of Things , i would check the pheonix web site and look up the beep codes , but i think when it beeps and then shuts down it might mean RAM is bad , if you CPU is bad it will mostly do nothing , and if you HDD is bad it will mostly just give you and on screen msg saying insert boot disk.

ram would be my bet,

or perhaps bios chip, the beep codes are similar for them bouth, but are far as i know bios and ram codes keep beeping till you pull the plug

[rat]

G day mate Im a newbee at this but do U power down as soon as U get codes ....wait a little longer to see what happens...(not too long though)..say 1-3 minutes....have U reseated everything inside ..and do U see Anything ON MONITOR ??...CHEERS

[panboy]

oh and the battery wont ever stop you computer from booting , it just powers a clock, the clock is used by a lot of programs , for alot of reasons , but wont stop a boot up

[topsax]

Thank you for the excellent reply.  It is possible the RAM I am using is bad.. I will try some new RAM in it and let you know..

All the Phoenix codes that I can find reference on DO NOT list a LONG beep and then immediate shutdown.. it acts like it is not even going into the POST routine.. it runs for about 5 seconds, beeps, and shuts down  (by itself)..  it seems to me that normally a computer will stay on until you power down.. this computer powers down by itself..

Thanks again for your time,
Bob

[Fed]

Is the electricity supply correct, who knows what China runs on, probably rice power.