I am having this weird problem with my new PC, which has been happening since it was built last week.

When I turn on the computer or restart it from Windows (XP or Vista) it shuts down, then I have to press the power button anywhere up to a dozen times to get it to start, it only gets as far as the burner lights lighting up. Once it is running it runs like a dream and I have no problems at all.

I have checked the memory and it is all seated properly, have tried a different video card, disconnected the burners and other hard drives, taken the soundcard out, nothing seems to work.

Any help would be greatly appreciated





My system

Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 CPU
2 x Kingston Hyper 2 GB Kit memory 1066MHz
Gigabyte GA-N680SLI-DQ6 RV2 Mobo
Razer Barracuda AC-1 Digital Audio Card
XFX PCIe 8800GTX xXx Video card
Thermaltake 1000W Toughpower PSU
WD 250GB SataII HD
2 x WD 500GB SATAII HD
Compro T750 HDTV Dual Tuner PCI Card
Thermaltake Bigwater 745 water cooling
Samsung 226BW 22" monitor
Samsung Syncmaster 913 19" monitor
Silverstone TJ07 Tower

Man, that has to be fustrating to say the least...

I'm thinking either the PS Unit and/or the Motherboard/CPU.

Since I'm assuming these are new parts, do you have any old parts to test with like a PS Unit with the current motherboard or an older Motherboard/CPU to test with the current PS Unit ?!?

It seems to be either a loose connection or power in general and you want to try to narrow down the cause of this. A big hint is that you have to keep pressing the Power Switch over and over again in order to get the machine back up and running

Yeh it is frustrating, I haven't tried another PSU cause the only other one I can get my hands on is a 450 watt which won't run the video card to say the least. Can't test the motherboard cause of the watercooling.

Yes everything is new

From you other post, it seems that you have been in the bios? Did you try to set the bios settings to optimized defaults?

Any messages that you can see when the system is posting that give a clue what might be happening?

Any chance that there may be a short in the system, where the motherboard is coming into contact with the case? Did you use insulation washers on the motherboard screws?

..and you are sure that you placed the connectors for the Power button, reset and so forth correctly?

I had a similar probelm and it was that the psu wasn't powerfull enough, but your's seems pretty big. Try disconnecting all that you don't need for boot up and add items one at a time until the problems re-appears, that way you'll know if its the psu or which item is causing the problem.

There are no messages or system beeps, have already tried unplugged everything

Did you try setting the bios to the optimized settings?

yep have tried the optimized settings, have kind of fixed that problem, took one of the sticks of ram out and now it reboots fine, weird thing is that there is nothing wrong with the ram lol, I can swap with it with any other of the memory as long as I leave that slot free

I can't get the bios to run the memory at 1066 as it is supposed to be, it will only run at 800mhz, and in the bios DD2 1.8v is marked as FAIL and in red, but it should be running at 2.2v

Any help greatfully accepted

I knew I should have followed my gut and stayed with MSI or tried Asus lol

Ah, that seems to indicate some timing issues with the motherboard and the ram modules.

It does look like perhaps a BIOS update maybe needed to resolve this matter, however, not every manufactures modules will get supported

As for the motherboard being a Gigabyte model, I have not had any issues with these boards myself and have had major issues with MSI branded boards.

I do agree that ASUS makes the best boards...

There isn't an update for the BIOS for this model so that idea didn't work, the shop I got the mobo from has been trying to get in touch with Gigabyte to see what this problem is but they aren't responding in any way

Take a look at the motherboard users manual under the memory installation pages.

For the bios, additional advanced bios options can be found by pressing CTRL F1 when in the bios.

Also, look at the Kingston memory specs page here for more information.

Some how missed the indicaror saying there was a second page doh, so in my other post I refered to saying that I couldn't find this last post, I must have been more tired than I thought last night lol.

I'll just paste my other reply to make things easier

danleff I can't seem to find the link you mentioned, I looked it up myself though and the memory you presumed I have is the wrong one I have the HyperX DDR2 (PC2-8500)

KHX8500D2K2/2G 2GB kit DDR2 1066MHz Non-ECC CL5
(kit of 2 - 1GB)

5-5-5-15 2.2V

Thanks for all replies so far

Hi, looks like your SMPS has Starting trouble, happens with many SMPS, Try installing another SMPS and that shuold work.

Best Luck,
Asutin

Strip it down and rebuild with just a floppy drive and an old PCI graphics card. Are you seeing anything of the BIOS? Use a Windows 98 bootdisk or a DOS system disk and see where you go from there. Perhaps the BIOS is somehow locked into onboard video if your motherboard has this.

Gigabyte support is a one-way street. I've been there. Built a budget computer for a friend a couple years back, used a Gigabyte board. Never again. He had the same problem you did, the damn thing worked for several months, then would boot up and shut down after it entered windows. Swapped the PSU, and the board never booted up again. Ever.
No reply from Gigabyte other than a generic "Make sure you to check all connection and piece proper" message. And yes, that is exact wording.
Yeah, I know, that doesn't help you, but see the pain and suffering you could have saved yourself with an Asus board;)?
And MSI ain't that great either, my dad bought one of their new K9N Neo-F boards and an MSI 8600 GT, the 8600 had a dual slot cooler, and with that it blocks off the SATA ports. Genius.