PC wont cold boot.

Big problems with my box. Basically it wont boot from cold (ie if its been switched of for a while) When I first switch it on i can hear the fans blowing (CPU, system and PSU) and the hdd spooling, as well as the CD/DVD drives acsess lights flashing but no boot. If I leave it switched on like this for 30 minutes and turn it off by the case switch and back on again it boots up and runs with no problems. If I then need to restart it for any reason I have to leave it for 2-3 hours before it will boot again and it still needs the 1/2 hour "warming up time".

I think its one of 2 problems, the PSU is on its way out and is'nt supplying the wattage I need or the mobos on its last legs. I'm unable to borrow a PSU to test the first theory and my cash is limited at the moment so I dont want to shell out too much when its not needed. Any advice would be helpful at this stage.

My specs:

Mobo: Elitegroups ECS K7S5A 1.00
CPU: AMD 1800XP
Ram: 512 SDRAM generic (Its cheaper and the performance increase is minimal for my home rig)
Graphics, AGP: Geforce2 64mb.
Sound: onboard.
HDD: 60 gig WD
CD/DVD combo: LG (I forget the exact model number)
3.5 Floppy: Generic
PSU: 350W
OS: Windows XP corp. SP2
I also have a nic and tv/video card on the PCI slots (2 of 4)
Printer/scanner combo and ADSL modem on the USB ports (2 of 4).

I've had this setup (with the obvious exculsion of SP2) running fine for the past 2 1/2 years with no problems.

Cheers :)

try clearing teh CMOS although it's a long shot.

It's possible that the motherboard or PSU is going.


what does it do btw when it doesn't boot...just stays at a black screen, freezes at any particular thing, etc.?

Get the system back down to basics. What I mean is get it so that only the PSU, Motherboard, CPU, RAM and video card are connected. Disconnect all other stuff. Try booting like that then, if it boots, add things one at a time.

Clearing CMOS is what I would try first. Also make sure everything is connected as they said.

VB's suggestion is best, but while you've got things removed try cleaning the edge contacts of any cards (graphics, sound etc).

The easiest way is to rub them vigorously with a hard eraser, then remove any excess bits of rubber with a soft cloth.

its probably the hdd...unplug the hdd and then try...

why would it be the harddrive? even if the harddrive is defective, it would still boot to bios.

I've tried clearing the cmos (bridging the jumper and removing the battery)
I also tried running it with just the cpu, RAM graphics and HDD attached but I'll try it without the HDD like VB suggested.
I've got a friends computer in a few weekends time to reinstall XP so I'll have to borrow her PSU to test it. Hopefully that will be the cause of it, I know that the k7s5a board was a bitch for power.

Cheers for the advice guys. :)