Bad cpu or mobo

I have been having problems with my comp shutting off and not restarting for a while. I thought it was the power supply so i got another but it didnt solve the problem. So at my wits end i just started taking things out and putting them back and when i did it with the cpu my computer started working for a long time but it still shuts off and i have to take out and put the cpu back in for it to start back up. So can anyone tell me whats up or point me to some diagnostics i can use

Abit SA7 motherboard
2.4 ghz P4
2 256 megs corsair memory sticks
40gb western digital HD
geforce 4 Ti 4200
Antec 350 watt power supply

I am leaning toward a mobo problem here. Are you running any kind of monitoring software?

Two other things to check are RAM, and heat. Start by using only one stick of your RAM, then try the other. You can also find a couple of RAM diagnostics here;

http://www.overclockers.com/tips79/

STS, I was using motherboard monitor
Stool i cheked ram and there both ok and temps never got higher than 36 degrees cpu temp

hmm, if you turn it on, itll just go off after abvout 4 seconds?

whats your BIOS version?

if this is your problem, try again but disable the "shut down when cpu fan fail" option in BIOS... this helped for me, and a BIOS update solved it...

when flashin BIOS's make sure you got the right "floopy" disk for it :lol: and dont have any other "progarms" running :hilarious:

jognt, now my pc wont even boot up, and i used that auto bios downloader abit has so i asume it was the most up to date.