Looking for ideas to resolve an outstanding issue I have with my PC; it decides when when to start, not me. I typically press the soft-start button on the front panel, and it may be minutes or days before the PC starts. Nothing, no fan, no lights, no HD led, no nothing for as few as minutes, and as much as days. Yeah, the hard-power switch is on, and the unit is plugged in.

Some observations:

• ASUS A8NSLI-B motherboard.
• BIOS... Phoenix - AwardBIOS v6.00PG
• PSU checks out OK with ULTRA PSU checker; MB connector OK, 4-pin Molex OK, 6-pin PCI-E OK, P4+12v OK.
• CPU temp 100 deg F, MB temp 105 deg F
• PC will almost always start up from hibernate OK, but fails to predictably startup from shut down.
• Last time to startup, I pressed and HELD the soft-powerup button, and toggled the hard power switch off and then on...fired up immediately.
• Takes longer to fire up approaching a full moon, then a new moon :-)

Yeah, this is driving me nuts. It's not the soft-powerup switch, because I can almost everytime startup from hibernation OK. I'm thinking it's some low-level function like BIOS. What do you think? Looking for ideas, experience.

Thanks, and Cheers!
Jim

Hi jimlarkey,
Welcome to PCHF
We have a staff of techs who have a wide variety of skills and will be able to help you with your problem, this is not my area of expertise, one of the folks who can help you should be along shortly.
Thank you
Cart

Thanks Cart,
Sorry for the format of the text....I thought I was using a rich text with bullets (at least that's what I saw) but that's not what you guys got. Sorry, this is my first post.

And as you can see, the PC did wake up this morning on command!
Cheers,
Jim

Just a short one to follow up and close my previous posts; problem was bad power supply, specifically leaking capacitor. You can see the section of the PSU with the bad cap at: http://www.pbase.com/image/89130908.jpg

When I got home from a 2-week road trip, my PC did not start up. I tested the PSU with an ULTRA 7-in-1 PSU tester again, and it tested OK. I took the PC to a local independent computer repair tech and he tried an ANTEC Neo HE 430 (430 watt) PSU the PC fired up. So he replaced my failed 1yr-1mo old Dynex DX-PS500W that was 1 mo out of warranty at Best Buy. Good timing, eh?

This is the 3rd PSU that my 17-mo.-old PC has seen. Lessons learned;
+ Spend the bucks on a quality PSU!
+ Take the PSU tester's results with a grain of salt.
+ Try the obvious before jumping into the exotic advice.
+ And....nothing like a good PC tech!!!

It's great to be able to press the on button and have the PC fire up. I still wonder though before I press the button, whether the PC will indeed fire up. Will take months to shake the problem out of my experience.

Thanks to all the previous posters that took the time and thought to offer up suggestions, which all played in the back of my mind. Some possible causes were eliminated due to poster's suggestions.

Thanks again for being there.
Cheers!
Jim

That's great Jim glad you got it going I was going to suggest the power supply but by the time I had read the post you had solved the problem.