Computer will not start on cold boot, only works after I press reset buttons.

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Hello,

I have been experiencing a problem with my computer recently. My computer fails to start on a cold boot. I can only hear my fans spinning and no signal to the monitor. Only after I press the reset button, the computer boots up perfectly fine. I initially thought this was a PSU problem so I bought a new PSU, and the problem still persists. Another thing to note, the fan on my graphics card spins loudly at 100% for about 1-2 seconds whenever I start or reset the computer. Is this normal? I'm trying to narrow down the cause of this problem, and it is between the GPU and mobo. Please help! Thanks.

AMD Phenom II X2 CPU (OC @ 3.8 GHz)
Biostar TA870+ Mobo
Corsair 4GB Ram (2GB x 2)
EVGA Nvidia 9800 GTX+ GPU
Antec 630 Watt PSU


 
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Thank you for your suggestion, but I believe the switch is okay. After I do a cold boot, the computer starts when I either press the reset button or if I manually shut down by pressing power button and immediately pressing it again to turn my computer back on. It seems like some computer component needs to warm/charge up in order to boot? I'm so lost here
 
Could be your psu isn't responding quick enough on a cold boot, but can on the second try. Swapping in a different psu is most likely the only way you will be able to tell.

Bad cmos battery usually displays different symptoms.

But both of these make me want to ask if you unplug the PC in between uses, or turn off the switch (if equipped) on your psu?
 
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Thanks for your reply Twoboxer. When I turn off my computer, I don't unplug it from the wall or turn off the switch on the psu. Could it be my graphics card? I've tried resetting my BIOS, replugging the power and reset pins on the mobo, replacing PSU.. and the problem still exists. I've also noticed that once in a while, if I do some kind of software upgrade or anything and if my computer prompts me to restart before new configurations, it sometimes fails to post as well.
 
Sorry, somehow I missed your psu replacement in your original post.

You've covered the obvious stuff . . . start and reset switches properly plugged into the correct slots, the physical switches work, the psu has been replaced . . . and the only other odd symptom you have is your vid card.

You use a separate 6-pin power connector for that 9800, right? Well, if you've swapped psu's you've by default swapped power cables, so that's unlikely to be the problem.

Do you have another PC you can test your card in? Or the reverse, another card you can drop into this PC.

Also, mostly for my own curiousity, what make/model were your old and new PSUs?
 

pjcnet

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Nov 4, 2008
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It's possibly a borderline overclock that works when the power has been on for a while, unfortunately it doesn't appear that your motherboard has overclock profiles which makes testing much more difficult in this situation, but I would make a note of your overlclock settings and try booting using the default settings for your hardware to eliminate this as a possible cause. If this works, then you could perhaps try tweaking your overclocking settings, perhaps your CPU needs a slightly higher voltage to cope with the extra clock speed, but please ensure you know what you're doing before messing with these settings as too much voltage could damage or reduce the life of your CPU. I'm not a great fan of increasing the voltage above the default settings to your CPU so it can run stable at higher clock speeds, instead I'd rather overclock to the maximum possible stable clock speed without increasing the CPU voltage, but there's plenty of people who are willing to do this for maximum overclocking.

Just a long shot, but I'd also like to check that you haven't unlocked any hidden cores that could be available in some newer dual or triple core AMD Phenom II processors? If not, then please disregard this paragraph. If a processor does have extra unlockable cores available, they're not officially supported and are sometimes disabled for good reason because they've failed the lab tests. Hidden extra cores may or may not work properly, or sometimes they could be unstable or less stable than the rest of the cores. It's even possible that extra core(s) might not work overclocked, even when the original guaranteed cores do work perfectly. If you are using hidden unlocked cores, I suggest you disable them to eliminate this problem. If this is causing the problem, you could try testing them again without any overlclocking and then you could tweak your overclocking from there if this works.

To check that your CPU is 100% stable when overclocking and/or when unlocking hidden cores, you could run a piece of free software named "Prime95" or similar software that will torture test your CPU at http://files.extremeoverclocking.com/browse.php?c=18 (32 and 64 bit available), but always run while also monitoring your CPU temperature closely using software like the AMD Overdrive Utility's system monitor or perhaps software included with your motherboard, see http://game.amd.com/it-it/drivers_overdrive.aspx to download the AMD Overdrive Utility. Please ensure your temperature doesn't come too close to the maximum temperature supported by your CPU (STOP IT IMMEDIATELY if it does) and that there's no errors reported (check on-line for your maximum supported CPU temperature as it depends on the exact model of your CPU).
 

danno76

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Feb 23, 2012
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Ive been having a similiar issue for the past few months, my pc wouldnt start up after restart only if I pressed power off and on than it gradually has gotten worse where i would have to turn it on 2 or 3 times for it to boot now since last night i have turned it on and off 100s of time and i cant get it to boot, fans come on, and hard drive comes on and lights on keyboard and mouse flash for a second than go off. the fans remain running at top speed. anyone with any suggesttions will be apreciated Thanks
 
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