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Power up problem

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by queen1

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I have a clients machine with a power up problem. push on button and it searchs the drives fine, fans all run, but nothing else,while it's running press reset button starts and runs fine. Checked the power supply with a tester checks out fine.
MSI motherboard (km3m-v) 1gig ram powmax case &p/s any hints ?

12 replies

by lmander56

Have a computer that was doing the same thing. Changed the bios boot to hard drive first, seemed to do the trick.

by queen1

Thanks for the response It didn't do it for me.
This one has got me stumped.

by dmiles

The CMOS battery may be going bad,so it may be worth it to change the battery,otherwise you have a problem with a ic on the motherboard.

by queen1

Change the batt as you suggested but to no avail. What did you mean by IC ? This machines heat sink fell off during shipping. I've asked if he ran it hot he says no BUT........ Thanks for your suggestions, I think rejected is to harsh wasn't it, is more like it.

by thechas

2 things to check when the symptoms are strange:

BIOS settings for CPU Front Side bus and multiplier.

Check for noisy fans.

I have had many a system that would not boot properly unless the CPU speed was manually set in BIOS settings.

I have also had a few strange problems that ended up being cooling fans that placed electrical noise on the system bus from the fan speed circuit.
Try plugging any fans plugged into the motherboard to either standard drive connectors, or other fan sockets as far from the CPU as possible.

Chas

by queen1

Changed the bios settings as you suggested, Nope still does it. the only fan to the m/b is the heat sink, case has three fans all connected to standard drive connectors was able to disconnect two, the third shares power with cd\rw. which will light on post and works, fails to load xp but on reset everything loads & works just fine, as long as it's running already. Thanks for your suggestions if anything else come to mind, please post.

by ozi eagle

Hi,

I've had this problem too, on an older computer.
Turned out to be a couple of capacitors on the mobo were bulging at the top. I managed to replace them, as I couldn't buy a compatible mobo anymore, but the process of replacing is tricky and can further damage the mobo. If your at the point of nothing further to lose, though.
If you need to replace these caps, try cutting the cases and the guts away from the pigtails (messy and awkward ) to leave the pigtails sticking up from the board. Solder the new caps to these pigtails, being careful to get the polarity right.

by queen1

Thanks, But if it come's to that. I'll just replce M\B is there some test I came perform? It's become a challange, I just won't this machine beat me.

by ozi eagle

Hi,

Do a visual inspection of the mobo.
There are a number of electrolytic caps around the cpu. If any of them have a bulging top, rather than a flat one, then that is your problem.

by queen1

Thank you one and all for your responses, It's up and running it was bad ram with normal beep code, go figure.Machine is less the 6 mos. old. Drove me crazy !!!!!

by electricdragon

Hi,
I think the 2 answers above mine are on the right track, I have also seen the same problem in two different area's though.
In one case the clients power supply had an electrolitic that was taking too long to come up to charge, testing it required hooking up the probes before powering on, then seeing if the voltage rises too slowly.
The other had added drives and none were set for startup delay, turned out the power supply just couldn't handle it.
In both cases the reset worked because 1. The Cap was now up to charge, 2. The drives were already up to speed.
You might want to try unplugging all but boot drive and see if it boots, or, swapping out the power supply itself.
GL and HTH :)
E.D.

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