Help please - Hesitant cold booting problem

[Whiznot]

My PC is a three year old build which has been problem free until now. I have not made any recent changes in HW or BIOS.

My PC usually runs 24/7 and I rarely cold boot. Yesterday I pressed the power button to cold boot and, for about one second, the power button light flashed and the fans spun but then everything went dead. After waiting awhile, I again tried to cold boot and experienced the same problem. I checked all connections and tried again without success. Just when I thought the PC would never boot, another attempt was successful.

I have since successfully cold booted a couple of times but only after repeated tries. Because the power button always flashes and the fans always start to spin I assume the problem could not be the power button. I would like to swap out PSUs but I don't have a spare. I do have a spare case I could move to but I would like to get some good opinions before I do anything.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[mechBgon]

A spec list might come in useful here. One random possibility: the motherboard might be set up to watch for a valid RPM signal on a certain fan header (the CPU fan header) or it'll cut off power (to avoid CPU overheat). Soyo motherboards have been known for that trait and they're not the only brand that could use that capability. So maybe lay out your spec list and see if something jumps out

 

[jackschmittusa]

Several things:

It could be the hd not spooling up quickly enough, which usually means the psu.

It might be the cpu fan not coming up to speed before the mb thinks it faulty and shutting down.

It less likely is electrical contacts are no longer bright and shiny or well seated. Pulling the cards and ram sticks and reseating would probably fix that. I would also reseat the power connectors on the drives.

Open it up, do a good cleaning (including the psu), take a look at everything, and try the reseating.

 

[Whiznot]

Thanks for your replies. I am running an Asus K8V SE Deluxe MB with a Venice core CPU and beta BIOS 1008.004. The BIOS is set to ignore fan speeds because my CPU and case fans are undervolted to 6v with Zalman fanmates and both fans run less than 800RPM. I am running two boot drives, a 160GB Samsung SATA1 and a 500GB Samsung SATA2. My case is an Antec Solo. I recently bought a second Solo when Newegg had one for $9.99 after a rebate. I guess I will just move all of my components to the new case and reattach each connection. I will consider all of the possibilities that you have suggested. Thanks, again.

Edit- I did not think of this before but instead of changing cases could I test the power switch by swapping the reset button lead with the power button lead and use the reset button to cold boot? There should not be any problem with trying this swap would there?

 

[jackschmittusa]

You can swap the switches. You can also just pull the power switch connector off and short the 2 pins for a moment with a pocket screwdriver or some such.

Not familiar with your mb, but are you sure that there is a setting to "ignore" fan speed for the cpu fan, not just disable an alarm?

 

[Whiznot]

Yes you are right. The setting just disables the alarm. I will increase the fan speeds but I can see that the CPU fan spins up the instant the power is applied but then dies.

 

[EQTitan]

If you have two of the same cases (assuming they both come with power supplies) why don't you just take the other supply out of the Antec solo and put it in the machine that has all the components already in it instead of taking everything out to put it in another case.

Chances are that if you press your power switch and something does happen it's not the switch. Disconnect all of the power cables, and reseat them then try it again. If that doesn't work try another power supply.

 

[Whiznot]

Hello EQTitan,

Thanks for your reply. The Antec Solo does not come with a power supply. From everything I have read here and over at SPCR I agree that the power switch is not the problem. Because I rarely cold boot it may be several weeks before I start troubleshooting. I am hoping not to have to replace the PSU before the Enermax Modu82+ 425 becomes available.