I just got a used one off ebay, he said it was only like 1 month old. anyways, when i installed it, my first power on lasted about 5 seconds, then it shut off. i tried again, and this time it lasted like 10 seconds, and shut off. third time being the charm, it has not shut off yet (the third power on happened like 5 minutes ago). should i be concerned about this? it seems to be doing fine now.

YES you should! This is why I never shop at eBay.

I guess just check and make sure the voltages to all of your hardware is correct... and if that's all good, and it doesn't pwer off again, I'd go with the flow. The only thing that bothers me is normally when it shuts off like that (though when this is the case it normally shuts of instantly instead of waiting a few seconds), sometimes there is a problem with a piece of hardware (in my case, processor). But it can't be your problem since you're booted up.

i would guess something is touching the case alittle bit to short it out the first two times. There is definitly something wrong if it just shut off the first 2 times.

That was my first guess. In my case it was shutting off because one of the pins had fallen off the processor and was setting between the processor and the socket when I clamped it down.... believe it or not this little thing is still running, even after a strange buning smell, and dozens of bent pins. That AMD64 is now running off of 2 pieces of speakerwire put into the sockets to replace the lost pins. And this thing runs stable at 41C lol

My friend had a bent pin on his. Intel. when he first built it and it would start up after a dozen tries turning it on and off but nothing would come up on the screen. A very unique processor you have there LoArmistead, how did you manage to break 2 off and bend a few?

Make sure to test your other HW also. I had a bad video card that was causing the system to reboot or shut off. Hopefully you didn't get ripped off. I have no problem with shopping on eBay if the seller has really good feedback.

make sure you are not overloading it just as a precaution. shut down your rig and unplug the power cable for 5 min and then hook it back up and power on. should that problem repeat, replace the psu after you remove uneeded things just to get in to windows.

hehe the bent few were from transportation between several houses under the assumption it was already dead, so we didn't take good care of it. The 2 pins that broke off, after much investigation, broke off IN the factory. It came out of an HP OEM. The pins fell off when I pulled the processor out of the socket. I didnt even realize it until I took it out and noticed a pin just setting on the socket... but yeah those AMD64's can take a beating. All you need is a pair of scissors, some speakerwire, and some tweazers.

edit: a flashlight also comes in handy because those wires are...TINY, especially once you cut them to size.

thanks for the help, its been about 2 hours or whatever, still no more trouble from it. i think it works fine now. as for the seller, he does have good feedback. i'd really rather not go through the hassle of returning it, so i'll keep it for a bit to make sure it works good.

edit: i have also been monitoring the volatages...
12v rail is stable at 11.968,
5v rail is stable at 5.134
3.3v rail is stable at 3.408
so thats good, i think it is a good psu unit, i dont know why it was weird when i first booted up...