Machine sometimes boots with power button sometimes not - power supply or motherboard fault?

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gzt

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#110690 14-Oct-2012 22:40

I have an older P4 machine which will usually boot without problems unless it has been on for a while.

When it has been on for a while and is then shut down it will often refuse to power up until it has been off for a few minutes at least. From there it will usually start with 3 or 4 presses of the power button.

In your experience is this more likely to be a motherboard or a power supply fault?

DravidDavid

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#701193 14-Oct-2012 23:50

It could be as simple as a faulty on switch. Is it one of those clunky mechanical buttons that you can hear snap in when you push it in and snap out of position when you push it again?

You could try installing wake on lan to see if it will boot any faster when sending a magic packet rather than pushing the power button. I had the same problem a while ago. I found sending the magic packet started the computer immediately after it was switched off, yet I could push the power button until the cows came home and it wouldn't boot until I'd left it for a good 5 or 10 minutes.

Do you also find you can push the restart button to switch it on? If so (as was in my case) it could point to a faulty switch.

gzt

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#701247 15-Oct-2012 09:16

It is a momentary switch. Cool idea about WOL : ) - I will try that just for fun.

The restart button does not power up the machine - but I have never tried it before so I would not know. When it comes time to open the case I can try swapping the jacks for the reset button and the power button.

Great suggestions!

DravidDavid

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#701850 16-Oct-2012 00:13

Sweet! Let me know how it goes. When I said my computer started with the restart button, I did not mean I re-wired on purpose to test. For some reason, my computer just started responding to one and not the other.

WOL is awesome. I use it on my windows phone to fire up my server when its off or start my rig from bed when in lazy/returning home from work. Good fun for scaring people or making them think they broke something too!