Hi,

I am new here and I really need help. I just built a new pc after my last one died and refused to start. The problem is the new one (all new parts) has the same problem - well almost. It does start but very, very rarely.

Powering on shows no activity on the screen although the motherboard standby light comes on and the fans kick in. The hard drive light on the case flashes quickly and then nothing. But by chance I hit the reset button and it powered on. At this stage I only had the processor, graphics card and ram attached. All the power leads are in place, including the graphics card. But trying to get the computer to reboot afterwards was a real effort - I must of reset the pc about 80 times before it worked again.

I thought it might have been the 500watt power supply not giving enough juice so I replaced it with a 580watt that I had lying around but the pc is still behaving the same way. When I finally get it working it behaves impeccably and is a joy to use but other than leaving it on forever, I really need to find out why it is refusing to start up.

On more thing - when it does work it occasionally gives an error message which is something like "overclocking failed ... press F1 to enter setup (bios) F2 to continue with system defaults." Since I am not overclocking it I find this a bit strange but this maybe a side effect of hitting the reset button continuously just trying to get the thing to start.

If any of you have any Ideas as to why it is behaving like this I would be most grateful

Thanks in advance.

Hi-- welcome to PCHF
Since that is an Asus board-- there is an overclocking utility in the BIOS
have you checked that-- I would go into the Bios and review all the settings.
If that does not work... there could be a RAM issue-- or even the board.
When you start-- do you hear any beeps? there should be a very tiny speaker on the board make sure it is enabled

Many thanks for your welcome and quick reply. To answer your questions -

Bios - seems to be ok. it is set up to the default values, mainly "auto" for all the overclocking settings.

RAM seems to be fine - I will download memtest and see if I can get the pc to boot up and check.

Error Beeps - not really heard any except the odd short beep which I thought meant everything is ok.

I think the board might well be the culprit - I may take a trip to the supplier tomorrow and get them to give it the once over.

Thanks for your suggestions

Let us know how you make out...

Its going in for testing this weekend. The supplier says turnaround time is 5 to 7 days so we will see when I get it back.

just a quick update. A friend suggested that corsair ram was a bit power hungry (the ram is listed as compatible with the board btw) so I tried upping the voltage to 1.9 in the bios. It made it boot more often but still requires up to 20 attempts. Additionally it can freeze the boot process.

As you suggested it is looking more and more lightly that it is the board. The only other feasible possibility is a fluctuating power supply in my house - and right now I just don;t need to consider that

It is possible-- but highly unlikely that the power to your house is THAT bad-- if it was you'd see more than a computer problem.
The Power supply in the computer case is a possible issue...
is it a good-quality, brand-name unit? Or "it came with the case" junk?