Strange Power Issue. Completely Baffled.

When I press the start button or try to wakw pc from sleep nothing hapoens. To start it I have to turn off the psu and remove the power lead. Then press the power button to compleatly drain any residual power. After this I plug the power lead in and the pc starts.

I am running windows 10 64bit.

Pc is a self build and is as follows;

MSI 990FX GAMING MOBO
AMD 990FX 8350 processor
Radeon R9 380 Gaming 4gb graphics
2x4gb kingston fury RAM
120GB integral SSD
2X 1TB SEAGATE BARACUDA HDDs
5 cooling fans
Xcase chassis
EVGA 600W psu

I suspect the psu but the pc runs perfectly fine under all loads once started.

Please help

 

Did it ever work correctly?

If your power supply has a master power switch on the back and you flip that to off, pulling the power lead does nothing - assuming the PSU is not physically damaged. And pressing the power button does not drain any circuits on a PC - it is just a remote button. That "trick" is a carry-over from decades ago with AT PSUs, but does not work since ATX became the standard. Notebooks are a different story. So you could probably just flip the master power switch on back, wait 10 seconds and then start it up normally.

Just plugging in the power cord should NEVER EVER start the computer. If it is, then something is definitely wrong.

If this has never worked properly since you put this computer together, I would suspect the 2 wires from the front panel power button are not connected to the motherboard's front panel header correctly so you need to verify that.

If it used to work and suddenly does not, I would suspect the case's front panel power button is broken/stuck. If you can gain access to the backside of the front panel, you might be able to push it back in place and bend the clamps tight again. But note once that metal (if not plastic) is bent a couple times, it loses its "temper" and strength and will bend out of shape easily gain. So this is usually a temporary fix.

What many do is remove the power button wires from the motherboard and move the reset button's wires to those two pins. Then just use the reset button as the power switch from then on.

 

The power button works fine to wake the pc from sleep this problem only occurs when the system is powered down or hibernated. I have tried just turning the psu off and leaving it for over a minute but it still doesn't work unless i go through ALL the steps listed above. I was unclear about the last action. The pc doesn't start when i plug the power lead in, I have to turn the psu switch back on and press the power button to start it.

 

Hello futbar, I have a similar quandary with my desktop. Similar but not the same. The PSU unit will not turn off after the OS has been shut down. I remove the power supply and all goes quiet. I am curious why this happens but my motherboard has been serving me for many years. It now runs 64 bit Win10 pro. I remember a couple of years ago a glass slipped and poured water all over the case. A week later after a lot of damping down it started working...
I think its current eclectic state started back then. After I upgraded it to Win10 I swapped the PSU for a cleaner new model and the PC turned off like it should. A few weeks ago it fell back into not shutting down correctly.
Good luck finding a solution,
s.

 

I ask again, "Did it ever work correctly?"

Okay, that's good. Thanks for clarifying that.

Do note that "Hibernation" mode is really only for notebooks (that is, battery operated devices), and not PCs. "Hybrid" mode was created specifically for PCs. It is what I recommend and use on all my systems.

I happen to be a fan of EVGA power supplies and have used them in all my recent builds with no problems. But until Man can create perfection 100% of the time, even the best makers can have samples that fail prematurely. And sadly, at this point I suspect the PSU too. Since verifying good power is always the first step in troubleshooting hardware issues, I would borrow and swap in a known good PSU and see what happens.

Another thought; what happens if, from off, you press and hold the power button for 4 - 5 seconds? If it powers up then, check your BIOS settings. Most BIOS Setup Menus let you define the function of the power button. Though that is usually to turn the computer off, there might be something in your menu that is different.

 

So which is it? Sleep, Hibernated, or Powered down?

As per Windows Help and Support...

 

It fails to boot from either Hibernate or off

 

Sorry, Yes it worked fine for about 2 months.

 

Have another look at posts #2 & 5 by Digirati. Particularly with regards to the switch and BIOS settings.
A few weeks ago I had the same situation with the PC starting/not starting at will. It was the switch behind the power button that became dislodged.
And do check whether clicking a mouse button will wake the PC from sleep or hibernate.

 

The mouse wakes th pc from sleep. I have turned hibernate off as I hardly ever use it.

 

Does this mean everything is OK?

 

No. I was a bit unsure when I posted this as to what the problem was. The issue I am having only appears to be when starting the pc from cold.