Weird startup problem. Always boots on 2nd try....

[Commando]

I just thought someone here might have some insight on a problem I'm having.

My new system won't boot on the first try. It hangs and the HD light stays on. It gets to the post screen, then blank, then freezes.

After holding the power button it will restart and boot up fine.

I thought I knew what I was doing until this weird problem.

I updated the bios and everything else is up to date that I can think of.

I checked all the startup options in the setup that I could think of. It's set to boot the correct hard drive.

Any ideas?

[Luke122]

Now that you mention it, my new pc (Karma) is doing the same thing, but it's far less regular.. maybe 1 in 10 boots = nothing. Powersupply lights up, but that's it. Press reset, and everything jumps to life like normal....

I've been through my bios settings and had my hardware apart twice, and cant seem to find anything to solve this. As I said though, mine is far less regular, so it's really just an annoyance instead of a major problem.

I'll probably spend some time on it when I get home though.. I'll let you know what I find.

I assume you've tried the regular troubleshooting.. reseating the ram/cpu, cards, booting with/without hdd's and cd/dvd's attached.. maybe even unplug your peripherals.

[Commando]

I think I may have solved it. But I'm not sure yet.

You would think that the default jumper setting on the hard drive would be master but it wasn't. I changed it to master and I think it's fixed.

The reason I'm not sure yet is when I restart or even leave my computer off for a little while it has no problem starting up on the first try. It's when my computer has been off for a while, like overnight, then it has trouble. Weird huh? That's why I was thinkin it might be little battery on the motherboard must not be holding a charge or something.

[Commando]

Nope, still happening.

I gonna try replacing the battery on the mobo next.

[Theorem]

The reason I'm not sure yet is when I restart or even leave my computer off for a little while it has no problem starting up on the first try. It's when my computer has been off for a while, like overnight, then it has trouble. Weird huh? That's why I was thinkin it might be little battery on the motherboard must not be holding a charge or something.

You may have a PSU issue there.
This use to happen when I had the PSU that came with my premod.
If I left it off for a long time then tried to boot, it would get to POST then shutdown. I figured the PSU was too cold to boot succesfully, so I heated it a little with a blowdryer before booting, and it worked everytime.

This may or may not be your problem, but you should give it a try.
good luck.

[Commando]

Solution found. Kinda.

First of all. Thanks Theorem. I've now got the problem narrowed down to only 2 possibilities with your help. Definite + rep

I used the hair dryer trick and I replaced the battery on the mobo and it started up fine. Now the next time I won't heat up the power supply. If it starts, it was the battery. If it hangs it was the powersupply.

Thanks again.

[Theorem]

Cool.
It'll be interesting to see which it is.

[Commando]

Theorem,

Your the man. You were right. It was the PSU. Do you know why that is? I've never heard of a PSU needing to be warm to work properly.

Thanks again.

[Theorem]

You know, I'm not really sure why it is.
In my case, I had quite a large system and a crappy PSU that was just cutting the minimum wattage I needed (400), so it was kind of understandable.
What are your specs?

[Luke122]

Hmm.. my similar problem continues, but it seems that mine happens mostly when exiting the bios and saving changes. Computer can be running for hours before I try, so I'm sure it's not a warmup problem. Sometimes happens when telling XP to restart, sometimes when starting up from being turned off.

Also, I've got a 700w OCZ power supply, so I dont think it's a problem with excessive draw. Then again, sometimes it just starts up first try with no problems.. *shrug*. It's not a really big problem anyways, just sort of an annoyance. I guess I"ll start pulling components tonight.