Does a pc require more amperage during boot up?

mwmorph

Diamond Member
Dec 27, 2004
8,877
1
81
Hey guys, I have a pc and it has trouble on cold bootup. It rarely posts on the 1st try, requiring many restarts to post.

The thing is, if I just restart it while everything is warm, it posts 1st time every time, but after turning it off, it requires quite few cycles.

During normal operation, it runs fine and never uns into power issues. I've use ORTHOS, gaming, linpack, etc with no issues ever.

I'm using a

Corsair 400w psu (400CX, 30A +12, 20A on +3.5 and +5)
Core 2 E5200 overclocked to 3.5ghz
P45/ICH10 motherboard (Gigabyte EP45-DS3L)
4gb ram (2x2gb) at 1000mhz, 2v 5-5-5-15 latencies
HD 4870 1gb stock speeds
2 HDDs
2 120mm case fans (along with a gpu cooler and cpu cooler)
1 DVD burner
Creative X-Fi Xtrememusic
4, maybe 5 usb ports used at any given time

I don't think my total power draw is too much, but just trying to troubleshoot this to make sure it's not the PSU.

TIA
 

mwmorph

Diamond Member
Dec 27, 2004
8,877
1
81
Originally posted by: theAnimal
Do you experience the same issue at stock speeds?

Yes, I've tried resetting everything to defaults and it does the same thing.

I did the math and I don't think this pc can draw 400w fully loaded, but I was wondering, on startup, is there a spike or something special that causes the psu to not supply the required amperage or maybe it's not a power issue at all?
 

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
56,587
10,225
126
It does take more amps to start up a PC than to keep it running, but you shouldn't be exceeding the capability of that PSU with that rig. Something is amiss.
 

deimos3428

Senior member
Mar 6, 2009
697
0
0
Hmm, it's unlikely that a component actually dislikes being cold. Try checking your CMOS battery, it might be starting to go.