Sign in with
Sign up | Sign in
Your question

Computer dead, then suddenly alive but takes around 10 seconds to power on

Tags:
  • Computers
  • Corsair
  • Power
  • Systems
Last response: in Systems
Share
September 26, 2013 11:06:45 AM

Hello!

First of all here are my current components:

Case: Fractal Design Define R2
Motherboard: Asrock P55 Extreme
CPU: i5 750 with a Corsair H50 cooler
Ram: Corsair 8GB CL9 160Mhz Vengeance LP
GPU: GTX 580
PSU: Corsair AX 850W 80+ GOLD
Storage: OS (Windows 8) on an Intel 520 240GB SSD, Samsung Pro basic 840 256GB and a 640GB WD Blue.


So, I put this computer together 3 years ago and at the time it had a GTX 260, Crosair HX520W, 4GB ram and just the WD Blue HDD.
For some reason when pressing the power button it would take between 1-3 seconds for it to power on, I had never seen this before but since it worked just fine I didn't care about it.

After a year I bought the GTX 580, and I had some problems where I would get artifacts all over the screen and then crash in more demanding games.
Someone suggested buying a new PSU. That's when I bought the Corsair AX 850W. I had also been told, prior to buying the GTX 580, that my 520W should be more than enough.
But since games were crashing I decided to buy that AX850W. Unfortunately that didn't solve my problems and games would still crash.

After reading more about this problem, which quite a few people seemed to have, I decided to RMA the card.
I explained the problem for the store where I bought it from and then sent it back. They ran tests and benchmarks but never experienced any crashed so they sent it back to me.
Again, after reading about the problem I found that the voltage might be too low.
Then I installed MSI Afterburner and turned up the voltage from the default 1025 to 1038 and this solved the problem!
This probably has nothing to do with my current problem so sorry for that, but I'm just writing down the changes I've done to my computer and the problems I have had earlier.

Well, my next upgrade was my Intel 520 SSD. Also at this time the computer still takes about 1-3 seconds to power on after pressing the power button. And this is after the new PSU, GPU etc.


Okay so now to the more recent things I have added to the computer right before this problem occurred.
First the Samsung SSD.
A month or two later I took out my old Corsair 1600Mhz 4GB (2x2GB) and installed Corsair 1600Mhz 8GB (2x4GB).
I also removed one loud fan that was in the top of the case and installed a new fan there and one at the bottom of the case. also removed the Corsair fan that came with my H50 Liquid Cooler and installed a new one.

So now all five fans in my case are Gentle Typhoon 120mm 1850RPM fans. The fan used for the CPU Cooler is plugged in to the Motherboard while the other four are connected to a Scythe Kaze Master II fan controller which was bought the same time as these 3 fans.

These were the changes I have done to my computer before the problem occured.

Before getting to what my problem actually is I also have to say something more that could be worth mentioning.
Around a year ago I moved the computer to another room and since then the computer have been standing more out in the open I guess you could say. And at the back of the case, at the motherboard io ports there is a CMOS button with a red LED that lights up the wall which can be annoying at night when the computer is turned off. This light never turn off as long as the PC is plugged in to the wall socket. I guess that is normal.

So pretty much every night I turned off the power switch on the PSU so that the motherboard light would turn off.
Also every now and then my num lock, caps lock etc would stay on even though the pc was turned off, didn't happen often at all though, but that's another reason why I turned the PSU off.
Can this be bad for the PSU, turning it off so often?


Now finally to the acutal problem. Last week When I was going to turn my PC on one morning, I first powered on the PSU and then pressed the power button.
As I said it always takes 1-3 seconds to power on, on a cold start. when its been on for a while and you turn it off and then on again it will power up instantly most of the time.
After more than ten seconds it still wasn't on though so I realised that the PSU must have been turned on already and what I did was to actually turn it off.
But when I checked again, the PSU was turned on. So I tried powering it up a few more times but it was completely dead, apart from the motherboard leds that was turned on.

Later I tried to turn it on again but it did not work. As I had no time to do anything more that day I left it unplugged from the wall.
One day later I plugged it in again to see if it would work and was surprised to see that after pressing the power button, 10 seconds later the computer turned on and worked fine.

So since then if it's a cold start it will take between 10-20 seconds for it to power on, while if you just turned it off it will be the usual 1-3 seconds or even instanly.
I haven't turned off the PSU any more times as I am not sure if that could have anything to do with this?
Maybe It's not good for it to be switched off that much?

Do you think the PSU could be damaged somehow from turning it off often or could it be caused by for example the new ram or something else?

I hope that someone managed to read through it all and I would really appreciate if someone would like to help me with this.

Thank you very much in advance!

More about : computer dead suddenly alive takes seconds power

September 26, 2013 11:57:23 AM

Most of these issues can be fixed by simply removing the power plug from the back of the PSU and then Press the power button for 15 seconds. Then reconnect power. If that doesn't work try removing both the 20/24 bin power connector and the 4/8 pin 12V connector then unplug PSU and wait one minute then plug power connectors back on to motherboard and then PSU to the wall. See if that fixes anything. 90% of the time when i see symptons like this, this fixes the issues.
m
0
l
October 19, 2013 3:17:55 PM

drtweak said:
Most of these issues can be fixed by simply removing the power plug from the back of the PSU and then Press the power button for 15 seconds. Then reconnect power. If that doesn't work try removing both the 20/24 bin power connector and the 4/8 pin 12V connector then unplug PSU and wait one minute then plug power connectors back on to motherboard and then PSU to the wall. See if that fixes anything. 90% of the time when i see symptons like this, this fixes the issues.

Hi. I tried the first thing you said and at first it did seem to work but the next day it took a long time for the pc to start again. This continued for a few weeks, sometimes it wouldn't start at all but after a while of removing the cord and pressing the button etc it would start.

Today I tried to remove the 24 pin and the 8 pin as you said and the computer started immediately afterwards. But then it wouldn't start again.
After that I decided to try and clear cmos. Not sure why but I did try to overclock using the simple asrock oz tuner in bios a while back.
Anyway after clearing cmos I was getting error messages about bios settings (don't remember what it said). Also "dr. Debug" was displaying an error code, different codes a few times but most were between 0-54 which means:
"01 - 54 (except 0d), 5A- 60
Problem related to memory. Please re-install the CPU and memory then clear CMOS. If the problem still exists, please install only one memory module or try using other memory modules."
http://www.asrock.com/support/faq.asp?id=334"
After setting the default bios settings I wasn't getting these dr. Debur errors more.
Unless I am in bios, then it shows the error 87 all the time.
"61 - 91 Chipset initialization error. Please press reset or clear CMOS."
As soon as I boot windows it will go away.

And as I said it will still take 10 seconds or more before it power on, or it won't power on at all.
m
0
l
Related resources
November 7, 2013 9:23:52 AM

Would really appreciate some help!
Yesterday my computer would once again not start at all. It was completely dead. I tried removing the 24 and 8 pin connectors again amongst other things but it would not start. So I left it with the power cord unplugged from the wall.
Today when i plugged it in it started again and It's working just fine right now.

If you'd guess, do youthing that this is caused by the PSU? Is it failing? As I mentioned I switched the power button on the PSU off every night before. Can that somehow be bad for it?
m
0
l
November 7, 2013 10:25:26 AM

It would point to either PSU or Motherboard most likely. PSU being the easier and chapest to test and replace.

And no turning the main power switch off won't hurt it.
m
0
l
November 8, 2013 10:25:54 AM

drtweak said:
It would point to either PSU or Motherboard most likely. PSU being the easier and chapest to test and replace.

And no turning the main power switch off won't hurt it.


Thank you. Turns out my friend had a 450W Corsair PSU that I could borrow so I'll try with that and see if it will start immediately.
There won't be any problems with my components and this PSU right? I will not be running any demanding programs.

Also when the PC wouldn't start I tried removing the MB battery which reset the BIOS and later when it did start It wouldn't boot into Windows because it was reset to IDE. So I switched back to AHCI and it seemed to work. But could there be any problem doing this without reinstalling windows again?
When I booted it right now it said "resume from hibernation" even though I have never used hibernation and it was turned off.
m
0
l
!