I am not sure where it goes so I am posting it here. I have a strage problem, it started a month or two ago. Whenever I shutdown my PC via Windows or Linux or the shutdown button on the case it will not boot afterwards. All fans power up, HDD works and everything seems to be working but I get no beep plus my monitor flashes between Digital and Analog and then goes off and only the LED underneath the monitor flashes. Doing a REBOOT from Windows or Linux works just fine, the reboot button on my case shutdowns the PC, waits 2 seconds and powers it up so I get the same problem again. The funny thing is, if I leave it powered off for 30 minutes or so, it boots fine. I have no idea what can be the cause of the problem as I did not change any hardware. IIRC my specs are: Intel Core i5 @ 4 GHz nVidia GeForce 250GTS Gigabyte GA-P55-UD3R motherboard OCZ 600W 4GB DDR3 RAM If there is anything else you want to know please let me know Sorry if I posted in the wrong section
Hi, The first thing I would try is to just reseat all the cables, connectors, cards, and devices incase heat in the case has worked something loose. I would next try running a memory test to rule out the possiblity of bad RAM. I would then try doing a minimal boot when the problem is happening. When it goes to this no post situation, try booting with only the cpu, video card, and a single stick of ram to see if the video will come up and the machine will post. If it does, start hooking up devices one at a time to see where it fails. If it doesnt come up, move the ram to a different slot and try again. If still no post, change the stick of RAM you are using with another one and test. If that doesnt work, try swapping out the video card with a known good card. If that still doesnt POST, the next thing to try would be a different power supply. From what you are describing, I think that may be the cause of the problem, but would try the other steps first before buying a new one. I am thinking that if the power supply is failing, that a soft boot doesnt draw as much power as a cold boot because when you first turn on a piece of electrical equipment, the resistance is greater than when it is already powered on, so the power supply isnt stressed as much when doing a softboot as compared to a cold boot. Where it will start maybe after a half hour, I am wondering if the capacitors in the power supply need that extra time to charge up, which is why it starts after half an hour of sitting and not working right after you shut it off. I am by no means an expert in power supplies but its the only thing I can think of that would let something like this happen. But seeing as how the motherboard has capacitors as well, I guess the problem could be the motherboard as well. Check the system board to see if the capacitors are leaking or are bulging. If they are, that is sign of bad capacitors and the board will need to be replaced. I would test the memory with memtest86 first though and try onboard video on the system board if yours has it before you start buying new equipment though.
