Fans running wildly, not even close to hot

Unfortunately, to get a truly accurate reading you're going to have to use a multimeter and read the wires themselves. Or get a power supply tester, and see if they pass. Multimeter would be better though.

Software (even BIOS) that measures voltages can be extremely inaccurate.
 
bummer that the psu wasn't the problem.
I think if it were me, I would pull the board out of the case, remove everything from the board except one stick of memory, cpu/heatsink/fan and use the on board video if you have it. Set the board on a non-conductive surface and connect the power supply's 24 pin connector and the 4/8 pin connector for the cpu. try it like that and if it still runs wild (possibly bad board...check capacitors) then it might be time to consider an upgrade. Microsoft will be ending support for XP in less than a year from now so you'll need to take that into consideration too
 
Looking at the screen shots of HWMonitor, the PSU was defo a problem as you appeared to be running at normal voltages roughly with the new PSU compared to the old PSU... Only other thing I can think of is that the board is already damaged, or has been dieing for awhile now... The system is rather old, P4 Prescott came out while I was in middle school if memory serves correct, and that was a long long time ago.
 
I appreciate all the help !!!

I think if it were me, I would pull the board out of the case, remove everything from the board except one stick of memory, cpu/heatsink/fan and use the on board video if you have it. Set the board on a non-conductive surface and connect the power supply's 24 pin connector and the 4/8 pin connector for the cpu. try it like that and if it still runs wild (possibly bad board...check capacitors) then it might be time to consider an upgrade.

if it still runs wild - how to check capacitors exactly ?
if it doesnt runs wild - what would that imply ?

time to consider an upgrade is already overdue :
http://www.techist.com/forums/f84/impact-graphics-card-battery-charge-situation-266042/
 
Read this about the bad cap era
The first flawed capacitors were reported in September 2002.[6] Many publicized press releases about the widespread problem with premature failures of Taiwanese electrolytic capacitors appeared. Most of the affected capacitors failed in the early to middle years of the first decade of the 2000s. High failure rates occurred in various electronic equipment, particularly motherboards, video cards, compact fluorescent lamp ballasts, LCD monitors, and power supplies of personal computers. News of the failures (usually after a few years of use) forced many equipment manufacturers to repair the defects. As of 2013 the problem seems to have receded, with the last major surge of complaints being reported in 2010
and....
Computer symptoms

Some common behavioral symptoms of "bad caps" seen in computer systems are:

Intermittent failure to turn on, requiring user to press reset or try turning the computer on repeatedly
Instabilities (hangs, occurrences of the "Blue Screen of Death", kernel panics, etc.), especially when symptoms get progressively more frequent over time
Memory errors, especially ones that get more frequent with time
Spontaneous restarts or resets
In on-board or add-on video cards, unstable image in some video modes
Failure to complete the Power-On Self Test ("POST"), or spontaneous rebooting before it is completed
Failure to even start the POST; fans spin but the system appears dead
Capacitor plague - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
I am sending this from my phone.
I am out of station for a long time.
Will check the caps on mobo, when I get back.

Thanks.
 
Fans running wildly, not even close to hot v2.0

I am back & i checked the caps on mobo:





Closeups:




Each and every capacitor that i could see didn't showed any signs of capacitor plague. There was some dust on some capacitors, that i cleaned off afterwards to check for any sign of capacitor plague, but i didn't detect any such sign.
Capacitor plague - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

After thinking over many times, i remembered the exact moment when the problem occurred - when i held the same RAM stick in slot while switching on the PC -
i think this info just basically changes the problem, whatever it may be, and
because this thread is too old & the problem needs to be seen in the perspective of new info, i stated a new thread :
http://www.techist.com/forums/f77/fans-running-wildly-not-even-close-hot-v2-0-a-268876/
 
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