Help: System won't reboot and powers off

Question

I'm going out of my mind here.
I've been putting together an A64 system for 3 weeks now, and I get the weirdest behavior.
I put the system together with the following components:
Neo Platinum Bios 1.3
A64 3000+
MSI 128MB 6800
1 512MB Kingmax ddr500 DIMM in slot 1
Antec sonata case with Antec tru380 PS
NEC dvd burner
Seagate Barracuda IV 80GB IDE drive
I could get it to boot up and start installing windows, but when it formatted the drives and would go to reboot, it would instead just power down.  If I hit the power switch, it would either start the fans, but not post with the diag lights all lit red, or do nothing.  If I pull the power cord for about 10 seconds and plug it back it, it will usually then post again.
I've bought or borrowed the following components and used them trying to solve this:
Antec NeoPower 480 PS
A different A64 3000+
2 different Mushkin pc2700 256MB sticks
A seagate 200GB hd
2 different cd/dvd burners
A different case
A GeForce 3ti200
A UPS to be sure it wasn't a house power issue
Some additional notes:
Thinking it may be a heat or heat sensor issue after a poweroff, I went into the bios and watched the hardware monitor the temp reads 65C which seemed high, but I see here there is a temp reporting problem with the bios.  More than once, when I hit the escape key to exit the hardware mon, the machine powered off.
Refusing to be beaten I slowly managed to get windows XP with SP1 installed on this machine.  Maybe once out of ten times I can get it to reboot, the rest of the time, trying to reboot does as above.
A few times while in windows, it has powered itself down while doing random things, often while typing into it.
So, I've read several suggestions here today that I will try such as putting the memory into DIMM slot 2 or 3.  Perhaps, I just have 3 DIMMS that all don't work with this board.  That will sure make this a much more expensive upgrade.
I've also seen much mention of problems being caused by keyboards.  I find it baffling that a keyboard could cause the above problems, especially the power cord needing to pulled for 10-20 seconds, but I will replace that that as well.
Does anyone have any other suggestions as to what is happening?  Could the board be bad?  It would be the second bad board I've gotten in trying to build this system.  The first was by another brand and had leads on the bottom of the board that were partially melted or scraped off, which is why I switched to the Neo Platinum.  Am I just the most unlucky person in the world????
Help and thanks,
mike

Answer 1

It very well could be power supply, even the one you temporarily installed could not have delivered enough amperage to get it through one of the more strenuous periods of system boot-up. You will need a healthy 22 to 24 amps PSU. Also, make sure the RAM you have installed, or tested with - is listed on MSI's test report for this board. Per RAM type, some sticks are only approved to run in certain slots.
Sounds to me either a RAM or PSU or both RAM and PSU issue. In addition...heat could also be a problem.