Intermittent, Pesky, and Annoying Boot Problem... Ideas?

[Ohnos]

Alright, this problem has been around for a bit, but is slowly getting worse and I'm really at a loss as to what's happening. I have some thoughts, but I don't want to go buying more hardware until I'm more sure what might be the problem. Here's the jist of it:

System:
Asus A7N8X - Deluxe, rev 1.04, Bios 1008
Athlon XP 2600+ 333
corsair 2X512 2700
Antec 550W Power Supply
80G WD Special Edition
Pioneer 104S CD/DVD Player
LG CDR/RW
GeForce 6800GT

Alright, the problem started with Windows failing to start on occasion. It would boot to the Windows loading screen where the blue rectangles would move across the window and then just stop. When this happened it would always boot up fine on a reset. I went to some effort and got everything totally up to date, cleaned out any old drivers and just made sure the system was in good shape. It ran without any problems for a bit.

Then I purchased a WD Raptor SATA 74G Hard Drive. Seemed to be good and managed to format it and install windows and everything seemed good. Oh, I updated my Bios to 1008 just prior to installing this HD. Anyway, I again started having problems at startup. Only this time it would stop earlier, at the Raid setup screen, and sometimes earlier at the detecting IDE devices screen. Seemed to be a hard failure as it failed to start on about 5 or 6 bootup attempts.

I removed the WD Raptor drive and suddenly it would boot up fine again on the IDE drive. Okay, I figured the Raptor went bad. Pulled it and was ready to send for a replacement.

Now, this morning, it failed to boot again on the IDE drive. On several attempts, first time the screen just went blank and never came back, this was at the point where the loading windows should have started. Next attempt, it stopped at the Raid setup again, but I noted that the two fans I have connected to the "fan only" power supply connector stopped as well at this point. Next attempt, it stopped during post again, but when it stopped, the power led on my case started blinking. Couldn't find anything in the mobo manual about a blinking led. Next boot attempt, it came up normally again.

Okay, so I didn't mail my Raptor back. I don't think that was the problem anymore. I'm suspecting the power supply, or the motherboard now. Oh, I've run memtest and it passed over and over for 9 hours straight, so I'd say my memory is good.

I'm at a loss as to how to troubleshoot this problem. I don't want to run out and purchase a power supply or a motherboard without knowing which is the problem. Any ideas?

Thanks in advance for the help

 

[Ohnos]

So... no ideas

Well, here's an update.

I powered up with my IDE only in the system. It booted fine and I started Asus probe. The 5 volt was a bit shakey moving from 4.703 to 5.000. It continued this way for a while. I started up prime95 as a stress test and the voltage increased to varying between 4.815 and 5.000. Finally, I stopped prime 95 and the voltage fell off again to vary between 4.7 and 5 again.

So... I unpacked my SATA drive and plugged it in again. It booted right up to the drive without any problem. The voltage has been higher and varying much less as time goes on. Currently it's holding perfectly steady at 4.923.

I don't know what to make of it, but it does seem that as time goes on the 5 volt power steadies out. Does this make any sense? All the other voltages have been rock solid the entire time.

What do you think? Is it the power supply? Kind of makes sense if the voltage steadies out with time that my PC stays fine once it comes up. But I don't know what the 5V supply is for or what effect it might have on the motherboard or anything. The fans run off of the 12 volts and it has been solid.

I know that the variation is not that large, but remember that it was working at bootup this time. Since it steadies out with time, that would explain why once it comes up, it stays up. I don't have a good understanding of power supplies or what's required.

I don't know power supplies very well, but maybe it's the problem. What do you think?

 

[Ohnos]

Well, no one ever replied. But just in case anyone is wondering what the problem was, it was my power supply Seems that the power supply (Antec TruePower 550Watt) took some time to warm up and output steady power. I bought a new Enermax 470W supply and haven't had a problem since. Now I'm starting to not like Antec. I've had a few PSs go bad from them, but worse is that I can't get replies from their tech support. I've emailed and called. No replies. Only get an answering machine when I call, but they don't call back like they say they will. And my email is close to 2 weeks old without a reply too. I thought that Antec had a good reputation, but I guess I'll stick with Enermax for a while and see how they do.

 

[Uncle Bob]

Glad you got sorted out, thanks for passing on the useful info