PC battling to start (power cycles every few seconds)

P

Praemon

Expert Member
Joined
Jan 11, 2007
Messages
1,899
Reaction score
472
Location
Cape Town
Hey all,

Hoping someone can provide some advice on the below problem:

So the last 2 days my PC doesn't want to start properly. When I turn it on (after being in a state of "sleep") the fan goes full speed and then after about 5 seconds it seems to reset (sounds like it turns off for half a second as the fans slow and the little light on the motherboard blinks out), and then it tries to boot up again. This just keeps repeating.

Yesterday when it happened, I turned everything off, and when trying again, it worked fine. This morning though, even after repeated unplugging and leaving it off for a while, it just wouldn't boot fully. I tried booting without RAM, but made no difference. Eventually after I went and did other things, I came back and replaced the power cable, and then it did boot up. Once booted, it's perfectly fine. I just have a feeling it's a bigger issue than just the power cable, and I'm going to have the same issue tomorrow morning.

Is this likely a power supply failing, or a motherboard issue? The PC is nearing 2 years old after being bought from Wootware in March 2017. If it is power supply or motherboard, would it be covered by any warranty? If not, what else could it be, and what can I try the next time it happens?

Any help is appreciated!

PC Specs:

Gigabyte GA-B250M-D3H DDR4 LGA1151 B250 Kaby Lake Micro-ATX Desktop Motherboard
Intel i7-7700K 4.2 GHz Quad Core Unlocked 14nm Kaby Lake Socket LGA1151 Desktop CPU - Cooler Not Included
FSP Hyper S 600W 80 Plus Certified Desktop Power Supply
G.Skill F4-2400C15D-16GVS Ripjaws 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 2400MHz CL15 1.20V Desktop Memory
Samsung MZ-75E250BW 850 EVO 250GB SATA6Gb/s 3D V-NAND 2.5" Solid State Drive
 
I had the exact same problem a couple of weeks ago. PC definitely had power but just seem to die while booting up. Fans keeps running, but nothing else. I suspect that an electric short may have caused my problems as I experienced some issues like my PC dying a couple of times when using my DVD Writer or adding any external HDD.

I found that my motherboard / CPU eventually went. I was able to use my old 32GB RAM in my new box, as well as my 2 3TB HDDs and 500GB SSD. Even the old PSU worked, but I decided to replace it with a new one on my new box.
 
Praemon said:
Is this likely a power supply failing, or a motherboard issue? The PC is nearing 2 years old after being bought from Wootware in March 2017. If it is power supply or motherboard, would it be covered by any warranty? If not, what else could it be, and what can I try the next time it happens?
Click to expand...

It sounds like the PSU.
Your MB has a 3yr warranty.
Your PSU has a 5yr warranty. It's however end of life and no longer stocked, they will offer you an alternative or you could ask for a credit note and pick your own.
Test with a different PSU.
 
Thanks for the feedback. Something else I've noticed is that the time is out on the PC. I had to force a time update to get it to the correct time. Can something as simple as a dead BIOS battery cause a problem like above? Or is this likely more a symptom of the PSU?
 
I had an similar issue, turned out to be Windows 10 fast boot that has issues with some hardware. Disabled the fast boot and never had the issue again. But in your case, it sounds more like a PSU issue.
 
Praemon said:
Thanks for the feedback. Something else I've noticed is that the time is out on the PC. I had to force a time update to get it to the correct time. Can something as simple as a dead BIOS battery cause a problem like above? Or is this likely more a symptom of the PSU?
Click to expand...

Take the bios battery out and go get a new one from the chemist etc, cheap to test if it is wonky.
 
Praemon said:
Thanks for the feedback. Something else I've noticed is that the time is out on the PC. I had to force a time update to get it to the correct time. Can something as simple as a dead BIOS battery cause a problem like above? Or is this likely more a symptom of the PSU?
Click to expand...

A PSU issue shouldn’t affect that so it might be motherboard short or hopefully just the battery. I had a similar issue before and it was the PSU.

Maybe wootware can take the whole PC and check it to make sure they replace or credit the correct item as opposed to you disassembling and having them bench-test them in isolation.
 
Venomous said:
Most PnP/checkers sell the batteries too
Click to expand...

yeah...watch shops too. CR2032 is the model number.

my brother's PC has the same symptoms...it's around 7 years old (I built it for him at the time). It's been through the wars a bit - lightning killed the ethernet port on the motherboard awhile back and I reckon probably did some other minor damage to something. I showed him how to get it to boot by resetting the bios when it gets stuck in a boot loop (and threw in an ethernet PCI card I had lying around) - that will hold him until next year when he gets a new one. Replacing the bios battery didn't help in his situation.
 
Thanks all for the replies - much appreciated.

Will try replacing the battery today. Had the same issue this morning. This time I unplugged it for 10 minutes, and then starting again it worked. Seems like it's connected to when the PC goes into sleep mode, so that may well be linked to the battery. Hoping that's the case.

Below is what it's doing when it can't start properly from sleep mode:

 
You only mention an issue coming out of sleep mode. So first try to shut down/start up normally and check whether you still have an issue. My hibernate wake-up is wonky on Win 10, so I don't even try using it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X