Delay in Start when Pushing Power Button

I have this issue where, when I push the power button on my computer,
the fans spin up and I hear this clicking noise. The computer does
not boot, there is no display, no beeping, nothing. Then, about 30
seconds later, the hard drive spins-up and the computer boots.

At first, I tried swapping power supplies and then swapping hard
drives, both to no avail. I next thought that maybe it's the
motherboard. The capacitors are slightly bulging and have a hint of
brown discoloring on top, so they might be bad. So I bought a new
motherboard and swapped out the CPU, memory, hard drive, CPU cooler,
and used a new power supply -- nothing. Then I bought a used 1.2
Athlon T-Bird and that does the same things with the new motherbord
(and after going back to the old motherboard, too) - nothing!

Here's a rundown of the Hardware.
-----------------------------------------------------
Biostar M7VKD (bad caps, replaced with MSI K7T Pro 2)
Athlon T-Bird 1.4, and Athlon T-Bird 1.2
3 PCI 133 Dimms (2 Dell brand @ 256 MB, 1 Generic at 128 MB)
Nvidia Geforce TI-4200 (this works in my other machine)
2 PSU's (400 and 300 Watts)
Various IDE Hard Drives


I am at a lost, so any help would be greatly appreciated.

"fish123456" wrote in message
...
I have this issue where, when I push the power button on my computer,
the fans spin up and I hear this clicking noise. The computer does
not boot, there is no display, no beeping, nothing. Then, about 30
seconds later, the hard drive spins-up and the computer boots.

At first, I tried swapping power supplies and then swapping hard
drives, both to no avail. I next thought that maybe it's the
motherboard. The capacitors are slightly bulging and have a hint of
brown discoloring on top, so they might be bad. So I bought a new
motherboard and swapped out the CPU, memory, hard drive, CPU cooler,
and used a new power supply -- nothing. Then I bought a used 1.2
Athlon T-Bird and that does the same things with the new motherbord
(and after going back to the old motherboard, too) - nothing!

Here's a rundown of the Hardware.
-----------------------------------------------------
Biostar M7VKD (bad caps, replaced with MSI K7T Pro 2)
Athlon T-Bird 1.4, and Athlon T-Bird 1.2
3 PCI 133 Dimms (2 Dell brand @ 256 MB, 1 Generic at 128 MB)
Nvidia Geforce TI-4200 (this works in my other machine)
2 PSU's (400 and 300 Watts)
Various IDE Hard Drives


I am at a lost, so any help would be greatly appreciated.


Well my first thought was CMOS settings improperly configured, or a bad
power supply. But then you mentioned changing the mainboard and the power
supply. My next suspect would have been the CPU, but you changed that,
also. This could be caused by a short circuit, under the mainboard. But
again, you changed the mainboard. If there was a problem down there, I
would hope you would have noticed.

There's an outside chance it could be caused by bad RAM. I would try
booting with just ONE stick of RAM. If that doesn't work, or if the symptom
doesn't change,
Leave your ONE stick of RAM in the NEW mainboard. But clear CMOS by
removing battery and moving jumper to clear for about 15 minutes. Then
enter BIOS setup screen and load default settings. -Dave

I have changed the jumper to clear the CMOS and have removed the
battery, too (mainly to check its voltage level) so we are back at
square one. I can only think that the new motherboard is bad or all
three DIMMs are bad or maybe my old 1.4 and new 1.2 CPUS are both
bad. It's difficult to tell, and not having any friends who have
working T-bird setups, I can't test it...

Thanks for the response, and any more are greatly appreciated.

the one constant...the case itself and its switch

"fish123456" wrote in message
m...
I have changed the jumper to clear the CMOS and have removed the
battery, too (mainly to check its voltage level) so we are back at
square one. I can only think that the new motherboard is bad or all
three DIMMs are bad or maybe my old 1.4 and new 1.2 CPUS are both
bad. It's difficult to tell, and not having any friends who have
working T-bird setups, I can't test it...

Thanks for the response, and any more are greatly appreciated.

Thanks for the response, and any more are greatly appreciated.

I briefly considered the case. I would be surprised if the switch is bad,
though. We're talking about a momentary contact switch. If it fails, it
either fails open or fails closed. If it fails open, the system never
starts. If it fails closed, the system starts, then SHUTS DOWN a few
seconds later.

Unless the power switch was on some kind of active circuit with a timer, the
OP's symptoms couldn't be related to the switch. I doubt if the power
switch would be active, as that would cost more. -Dave

JADwrote:
the one constant...the case itself and its switch
Actually, I have two cases. I should have mentioned that I
suppose. When I said I swapped power supplies, I meant I switched
cases (and all of which that entails).

One thing that also may be of interest is if I start the computer with
the hard drive plugged in to the power and IDE cable, the hard drive
doesn't spin-up. But, if I remove the IDE cable from the hard drive
while the system is powered-up, the hard drive spins up. I thought
maybe the cable was bad, but I swapped it out with a known good cable
and it did the same thing.

The system should still get past the POST and tell me that there is no
OS installed, but I thought it was an interesting point to maybe spark
some ideas.

Thanks again to all who have helped and will help!

On Tue, 28 Mar 2006 14:38:06 GMT, lid (fish123456) wrote:

One thing that also may be of interest is if I start the computer with
the hard drive plugged in to the power and IDE cable, the hard drive
doesn't spin-up. But, if I remove the IDE cable from the hard drive
while the system is powered-up, the hard drive spins up. I thought
maybe the cable was bad, but I swapped it out with a known good cable
and it did the same thing.

The IDE interface has a reset line. The motherboard is holding it
active, preventing the drive from running.

The first thing I would do before replacing anything is check if the
motherboard is being held in a reset state. Two external things can
cause that: PWR_OK at the ATX power connector and ResetSw at the front
panel header. Measure their voltage levels when you turn on the
computer.


The system should still get past the POST and tell me that there is no
OS installed, but I thought it was an interesting point to maybe spark
some ideas.

Thanks again to all who have helped and will help!

Andywrote:
On Tue, 28 Mar 2006 14:38:06 GMT
The IDE interface has a reset line. The motherboard is holding it
active, preventing the drive from running.

The first thing I would do before replacing anything is check if
the
motherboard is being held in a reset state. Two external things can
cause that: PWR_OK at the ATX power connector and ResetSw at the
front
panel header. Measure their voltage levels when you turn on the
computer.

Thanks Andy:

Where is the PWR_OK at the ATX power connector? Does it matter that I
don't have the Reset switch hooked up to the front header? What kind
of voltage am I looking for?

On Wed, 29 Mar 2006 14:31:22 GMT, lid (fish123456) wrote:

Andywrote:
On Tue, 28 Mar 2006 14:38:06 GMT
The IDE interface has a reset line. The motherboard is holding it
active, preventing the drive from running.

The first thing I would do before replacing anything is check if
the
motherboard is being held in a reset state. Two external things can
cause that: PWR_OK at the ATX power connector and ResetSw at the
front
panel header. Measure their voltage levels when you turn on the
computer.

Thanks Andy:

Where is the PWR_OK at the ATX power connector? Does it matter that I
don't have the Reset switch hooked up to the front header? What kind
of voltage am I looking for?

PWR_OK is pin 8; it's documented in the motherboard manual. When
PWR_OK is low ( 0.8 volts) the motherboard is being reset; when it
goes high ( 2.0 volts), shortly after power is turned on, the
motherboard is allowed to run.

Regarding the reset switch, you might want to observe the voltage when
you press the switch (one pin is ground, the other pin is not).