Hrm. New "build" oddity!

[Lexxon]

Hey folks,

I'm a bit at a loss. I recently bought this computer: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/ol...&cp=1&id=1204331848110 for $411, must have been on clearance or something. However, I wanted to use some of my own parts in it, and the case they gave me was of the MicroATX variety, so I decided to move everything to my current case.

Now, first, I helped out a friend in doing this exact thing with the exact same computer, almost identical parts, just a few days ago, with little to no hiccups, even before he got a new power supply to properly plug in all the drives.

However, my computer, after the full build, is acting a little weird on turn-on. So far, every time but the first time I've turned the computer on, the first 1-3 times I hit the power button, the power goes on for a split second, then goes back off. The lights light up, the fans start, then it dies. After a couple more button presses, though, and this happening on each one of those presses, the system boots and purrs along like nothing was ever wrong--WOW is it fast compared to my old build.

But, I'm curious what could cause something like this? I'm a little afraid that something could be damaged by these quick bursts of power. Once I get home tonight I'm going to start unplugging some things in order to test things. For reference, I have a 500W Antec Power Supply, and the hardware I have added to the computer includes swapping one of the Dell drives for my own 320GB drive from my previous computer, and an eVGA 8800GT 512MB.

Thanks for any help!

 

[DSF]

How long have you waited after the power "dies" before pressing the button again?

 

[Lexxon]

Normally just a few seconds. It did it this morning, though, with the mobo having power all night, and turning it on after hours of sitting with the power off. Then I hit the power button with a few seconds in between each press, and eventually it works.

As I said, when I get home (once I leave!), I'll be taking out the video, a HDD, etc. to see if anything seems to be causing it.

 

[robisbell]

you may have hooked up the front panel series of buttons incorrectly.

 

[jackschmittusa]

robisbell

If it starts, it's not a button problem. Duh!

Try disconnecting the drives and see if the problem goes away. It could be the hd not spinning up fast enough. Multiple start attempts may be spinning up the drive gradually.

 

[Lexxon]

Well, then.

Put everything back into its original case--and everything's working perfectly so far. So it was some sort of connection error or incompatibility, I guess, with my case, or something I put on the motherboard. It's just an Antec 500W Power supply (that worked perfectly 2 days ago for my old parts..), and I had put in the 8800GT, which, also was working perfectly and should work with that PSU.

I guess now I need to see if the Dell 350W can handle the 8800GT along with the 2 HDDs and such--I'm guessing it may be a stretch. I might swap PSUs only in this tiny case and see if that works, if that's the case, then it was either simply a connection error somewhere, or the front panel of the case isn't getting along with the mobo? (Doesn't make much sense.)

Anyways, I was hooking up the front panel correctly, I looked up the generic Intel mobo layout, and also a generic Foxconn layout, which this is a custom Foxconn Dell mobo--no material for the exact model, unfortunately.

Thanks for the help! I'll update with any more findings.