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Recently, my desktop has become very slow to start its booting process after the power button is pressed. Sometimes there is a lag time of up to 10 minutes from when the button is pressed in, to when the fan starts up, the PC lights come on and the booting process starts. Once the fan starts the booting process is normal and takes only a couple of minutes.

The first signs of life, prior to the fan starting, are the num/caps/scroll lock lights flickering on the keyboard and the light on the Netgear DG834 adsl router coming on.

I have tried unplugging all non-essential cables from the rear of the PC (printer, router and speakers) following advise from my PC supplier and rebooting. At first unplugging the router cable from the ethernet port seemed to work as the PC booted immediately. However, I do not know whether this was just coincidence as now unplugging the router cable makes no difference. I have spoken to Netgear and they have taken me through the process of re-configuring the router. This also has made no difference.

Can anyone help me? Your assistance would be much appreciated.


Moved to Networking

Hi nirvana,

Welcome to PCHF.

Sounds like Power supply to me nirvana, either your PSU is close to death, or you don't have enough power for all your devices. I think your PC Supplier may have thought this as well for them to ask you to unplug all external devices, altough USB devices don't use much power so it wouldn't have made a huge difference.

If you haven't added any new hardware internally, there is such a thing known as "Capacitor Aging". Over a period of time, your PSU will require more power to run, leaving less power for your PC!

Thanks madmonkey. The PSU seems to be the most likely culprit. As it costs 50 GBP for a new Shuttle PC40, I will just put up for the wait for now.

OK nirvana, let us know if it works out.