What is about to fail?

Hi All

A couple of times over the last few days the PC will not switch on. When the power switch is pressed - nothing.

The first time it happened was during a restart - shut down then didn't restart. Second time was today - windows put to sleep last night, wouldn't start this morning.

I still have power at USB (can charge phone etc). If I kill the power to the PC for 5 or 10 minutes then it starts up as expected.

Any suggestions?

Cheers
Grim

Hi. If it was something failing i would expect it to be the psu or motherboard. You might be able to fix this by resetting the bios and clearing any power left in the system. I had a issue like this occur after a powercut. Remove the power cord from the pc take the side panel off and locate the cmos battery. It will look like a watch battery. Once you've removed it press the power button with the cable still disconnected a few times to suck out any power left in the system. Leave it like that for 15mins or so then re insert the battery connect the pc back to power and turn it on. Note this will reset your bios and system time but you wont lose any data it wont affect the harddrive.

Blackmesa8

OK, reset the bios, and put in a new cell for good measure (even though the board is only 5 months old), but just had same problem again.

Cheers
Grim

Might sound stupid
but i had this exact problem years ago, it turned out the actual power button on the PC`s tower had a fault as was not making the full circuit to induce power up

Edited by groovesection (Mon 04-Jan-10 06:05:31)

Well, I'd try another power supply - it's the cheapest thing to replace, and it's not a bad idea to have a spare one.

motherboard or PSU

had a pc do this recently on a gigabyte p965_s3 board

would not physically start unless i switched off the psu and put it back on again

replaced psu then a few days later mobo was dead

the original psu runs fine still lol

I've seen these precise same symptoms in the past. It was the PSU on both occasions.

Hi All

Not had any problems since 3 Jan. Fingers crossed, but I hope I can file it under 'one of those things'. Anyway board/psu are not quite 6 months old so with any luck if either are on their last legs they wont make it to the end of the warranty.

Cheers

Grim

I've seen this issue a few times and it was always the PSU. Is you are handy with a multi-meter, get readings from the PSU connections just to confirm it's faulty. If not, then since it's under warranty just get it replaced