Hello people,

Today I encountered a booting problem that may be related to the power switch or the power supply or not. On a cold boot when I press the power button of my Antec Solo I get a very brief response from my fans and the switch light but then everything stops. This failure will happen repeatedly but finally the computer will boot.

I do not have a spare PSU to swap out. I have a spare Antec Solo that I could swap to but I wanted to get some informed opinions before I start troubleshooting.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

That sounds like a PS or a memory problem.

Have you been changing BIOS settings?

If you have a small speaker from an old PC you may want to plug it into the problem terminals, usually near the power on/reset/HDD LED connectors. With the speaker may hear some beep codes, which will tell you what is doesn't like.

Thanks for your reply.

I have not changed any BIOS options recently except for boot options (I have two boot drives). The computer has been used without problems for a long time so I doubt if memory is the issue but it will not hurt to test it. My power supply is a three year old Seasonic 400 watt.

My computer usually runs 24/7 so I rarely cold boot. I would like to trouble shoot the issue but right now the computer is running and I worry that if I shut down I might not get back up.

Hello Michael,

This seems to be very similar to the issue I've encountered -- I have to reset the BIOS in order to boot. I've swapped out the PSU, and that didn't help; and I've attempted to figure out if it is the BIOS. I also recently replaced the RAM -- it was doing the same thing with the old RAM. I've tested the RAM pretty thoroughly, and come up with no errors.

So, it is a mystery still -- it seems like it's an instability in the BIOS.

Hello Neil,

I guess it could be the BIOS. My MB is an old Asus K8V SE Deluxe but for the last six months I have been running the latest beta BIOS which was necessary for a Venice CPU. I have a spare CMOS chip with same BIOS. Within the next week I will have to shut down for an unrelated reason. If I can't get back up I will try swapping CMOS chips.

To help diagnose my hesitant cold booting problem I would like to eliminate the power switch as the problem source.

Is there any reason why switching the reset button lead with the power button lead and then booting with the reset button would not help?

A reset button works the same as a power button.....crosses a circuit as long as the button is pressed. But I don't think that's your problem..... I'd probably suspect the PSU first.

Thanks for the reply Bluefront. I am waiting to win my Modu82+.

Sometimes cold boot problems are caused by failing capacitories on motherboard (they look bulged or are just leaking). Because your motherboard is many years old, this seems not unlikely.

unless the button is getting stuck down? Just a thought. Swap reset and power to check.

Thanks for the replies. The capacitors all look good and I don't think the power button sticks. Because I rarely cold boot it might be a long time before I do any more trouble shooting. I am not going to shut down just to experiment.

If the PSU is the problem I am hoping that the 425 watt Enermax Modu82+ becomes available soon at some reasonable price. It looks like Newegg is charging a premium over MSR for the 625watt Modu82+.