PC powers off within 1 sec after power on frequently

[elijo]

Hi.

Power supply: PMC1036 400W.
ACPI uniprocessor Pentium 4, 1.8 GHz, 768 RAM, XP pro.
HD WDC 200G + WDC 40G.
NEC DVD + Sony CD/RW.
(No gaming).

I'm using a customized PC for some years. Once in a while it
will power off to complete loss of all power within half a second after I push the power on button on my keyboard. But not always, to be sure, most of the times it brings the PC back up normally. The problem started out occurring once in a few months a few years ago, but the frequency of this failure has gradually increased to every five times of powering on, now.

The bad thing with it is, that the power supply is really completely dead, no power at the mouse, at the keyboard or anything else anymore. And the only way (I've come about) to get power back on again is 1) wait a while, between 5 minutes and some hours, and 2) wiggle the mains power plug entering the pc plug to generate some 'sparking noise' while the PC main power-switch is off, and 3) switch power on with the PC main power switch, and 4) repeat the three steps once a while until success.

The problem occurs as well when I had put the PC to standby as when I had switched it off. I've never seen it occur, though, at switch off: the mouse remains lighted and the keyboard remains functioning. So the problem comes about only at powering up time.

Sometimes, but not always, after the hard restart obviously involved, I receive a system warning that the power had to be swiched off to protect the MB; that I should put video acceleration to NULL - which I did; that I should download the latest video driver - which I have done time and again, right now it's the most recent Nvidia Geforce FX5200 driver 6.14.10.9371; that I should replace the video card - which I did once. Everything to no avail: the problem re-occurs in every changed situation, as it did before.

I'm grateful for any suggestion.
Elijo

 

[eyeCpc]

Sounds like a weak battery on the board or a possible problem with the power supply. The latter would be a bad cap where the demand at startup isn't being handled. On a system one year or older don't be surprised to see the Lithium watch/calculator type battery go. That will stall everything since that retains the cmos information.

 

[elijo]

Thanks so much, eyeCpc. Now, I have two questions. First, could the weak battery lead to the described problems solely, without any other failure? Since for the rest, the system is working fine. Second, if I replace the battery, do I lose the Bios info, so will I be able to start up at all afterwards?

 

[advancedgeek]

yes... it will delete everything as no power is supplied to remember the bios settings. and i think you should also change your power supply if this happens after you replace the battery as it may cause the motherboard or the whole computer being fried in the end.

 

[elijo]

really? ... advancedgeek, you must be kidding...how come? please explain!

 

[networkgeek]

you will loose some saved bios info but the computer will use default bios info from the bios chip itself that will allow it to startup .

anything you had changed in the bios since before you changed the battery you will have to resave in the bios though. if you have never been in the bios before then dont worry about it.

a battery is a couple dollars. try there first. if that doesnt work then you have a bad powersupply and you need to get another one

 

[elijo]

thanks networkgeek, now it's clear, and I will.

 

[Dynamite]

The bad thing with it is, that the power supply is really completely dead, no power at the mouse, at the keyboard or anything else anymore. And the only way (I've come about) to get power back on again is 1) wait a while, between 5 minutes and some hours, and 2) wiggle the mains power plug entering the pc plug to generate some 'sparking noise' while the PC main power-switch is off, and 3) switch power on with the PC main power switch, and 4) repeat the three steps once a while until success.

This sounds similar to a machine I was working on. I powered it on the first time, it would boot up about 5 seconds into POST then shut off. I tried to turn it on again, but it was completely dead. I would have to wait 5-10 minutes to get any sort of power through the computer again...including system lights and monitor display. I swapped out the power supply and it worked fine.

 

[TheMajor]

Mine does something similar after it has been disconnected from the power (or PSU turned off). I think it is normal; it may be related to overclocking. My motherboard does a "hard-reboot/reset" when overclocked/underclocked (it's a safety feature) so it may be related. Asus P5W DH Deluxe.
Maybe your board also acts like this in some way.

 

[eyeCpc]

When removing the battery for replacement or if it simply goes doa on you everything returns to the factory defaults and you will first see the bios screen for re-entering the time and date and then proceed to make any changes in settings you previously had made. You may want to go through and write down any made since the board was new for restoration after.

One old trick for refreshing or recycling the supply comes to mind where you shut everything down, switch the supply's breaker off, and unplug the ac cord. Once this is done you turn the breaker switch back on and press the power button to see the supply's caps discharge themselves. If there's no problem with the supply then everything should spring back to normal. But with a fresh battery and continued problems after that you have to start looking at a hardware fault.

The most coomon battery used is a CR2032 found in the watch/jewelry dept in retail stores or at a place like Radio Shack for the $2-$3 price over replacing a much costly item like the supply. Hopefully it will just be a weak battery for you.