Intermittent PowerUp failure

[AussieJoe]

I have recently built a system from all new components and find that sometimes it fails to start - so I have to off/on/off/on the power switch 5-10 times b4 it boots up.

When I switch it on, the cd light and pc power lights come on, but the monitor (which has its own power lead - it is not piggy backed) does not react at all, there is therefore no video output at all, and there are no bios beeps.

The most frustrating thing is that sometimes it works first go, so it is hard to troubleshoot.Sometimes it boots fine first go, and once it's running it runs well.

It is an at/atx mobo, running off an AT power supply.

cheers http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif

[AussieJoe]

An interesting addendum...

This PC powers up every time at my place, as soon as I take it to my friends place, it fails to power on about 30% of the time.

Why would it behave differently at different houses ??
but more importantly, how do I fix the problem ???????

[Reid]

Your power supply sounds like it is very marginal and is sometimes not able to supply the initial demand. If the input line voltage is higher at your place, that is helping it along. I think the only remedy is to replace the power supply, and you should probably buy the next higher wattage unit. What type and speed of CPU are you running and how many devices is your system supporting, and what is the wattage rating of your power supply? This could help determine if you might actually need a more powerful supply, beyond one step up.

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reido@my-deja.com

Friends don't let friends load Windows ME

[This message has been edited by Reid (edited 01-12-2001).]

[AussieJoe]

The system is a very basic celeron 433 with onboard vid/sound/modem and a cdrom 1 hdd and floppy.

I'll try the new powersupply as that does make sense...
thanx