Long delay after pressing power button

[bulletproofman19]

I have a 3 year old Shuttle SFF PC. Everything ran smoothly until about 6 months ago. I started randomly having a delay when turning my computer on. I would press the power button, and nothing would happen for 30 seconds or so, until the computer suddenly came to life and booted as normal. Over the past 6 months, the frequency and duration of this phenomena has increased. It now happens every time I try to turn on my computer. The delay between the time I press the button and the time it does anything is approx 5-10 minutes.

To clarify, when I press the power button, it does nothing -- no lights, no fans, no sounds. I can leave my computer totally unattended after pressing the button, and then in 10 minutes it will spontaneously turn on and boot up as if nothing was wrong.

On a possibly related note, my computer has also begun losing time at a pretty high rate. I have Windows XP Pro on a moderately powered machine, but the windows clock seems to be losing about 10-20 minutes a day, a problem that has only begun recently.

Thanks in advance for any ideas you might have. I appreciate it.

 

[amdskip]

I would say your power supply has slowly been going bad. I would replace it before it goes out and takes out more parts of your computer.

 

[montag451]

As AMDSkip says, but It might also be worth trying a new CMOS battery first.

 

[bulletproofman19]

by "CMOS battery", do you mean the little round battery on my motherboard?

 

[tyborg]

yes. if you set up any custom BIOS options, make sure you take note/back them up, as removing the battery will reset them to factory defaults. Also, open your computer, and take a look at the wires that go from the front of the case to two pins on the motherboard, Remove the wire connector from the motherboard, and take a screwdriver and jump the two pins labeled "power sw." now you have effectively simulated what happens when you push the power button. If it takes a few minutes to turn on, your power supply or cmos battery is bad, if not, it's just your case's power button.

 

[bulletproofman19]

thanks a lot for the advice guys. i'm going to try the CMOS battery swap and manual power on and i'll let you know what happens. thanks again.

 

[bulletproofman19]

Thank you all. I replaced the CMOS battery this evening and for the first time in months, my computer actually responded immediately to the 'power button'! A small part of me is disappointed at not having an excuse to buy a new power supply (and therefore be able to run a higher powered video card), but my wallet is glad for this solution.

 

[bulletproofman19]

hey, I'm not sure if anyone is still reading this thread, but unfortunately this problem is not solved. my box was starting up no problem last night, but when i got home from work tonight, I had my usual 10 minute wait. maybe there is another related problem that is causing the battery to drain too quickly? maybe last nights tests were not represenative, because the machine was already "warmed up" after being on for a while. if you have any more thoughts, i'd like to hear them.

thanks.

bpm19

 

[montag451]

Now is your opportunity to get that new power supply and vid card you have been slobbering over.

 

[bulletproofman19]

mmm....many frames....so delicious

 

[montag451]

enjoy

you only live once mr bulletproofman

 

[eddygoed]

I also have a Shuttle SLIX box and the same problem. I recently added new hardware to make it a MCE PC for my kids.
I'm wondering if you fixed your problem and which power supply did you buy?

Thanks in advance from my family.

 

[bulletproofman19]

i ordered the Shuttle XPC 250W Power Supply PC40 off eWiz.com, but it hasn't come yet. It looks to be compatible with the SK41G, which is the kind I have.

 

[bulletproofman19]

eddygoed,

The new power supply seems to have fixed the problem, so hopefully your machine will be fine too if you replace the power supply.