Must push the power button 4-5 times to start powering up...

Hello Major Geeks,

My first post here in these forums... Ok, down to business... I have a 5 year old Dell Dimension 2400 running Windows XP. It has been working great, but about 2 weeks ago I found that it would not power up and stay on until the 2nd or 3rd time I pushed the "on" button. This happened once or twice over a few days then things went back to normal - when I pushed the "on" button it would power up normally.

Then this morning I actually had to push the "on" button 5 or 6 times to get the machine to come and and stay powered up... The first four or five times it would begin to power up (I could hear the fan come on as well as some other "normal" start up noises) for a few seconds then it powered down again. I would wait 5 - 10 seconds then push the "on" button again... after the 5th or 6th attempt it powered up normally and has been running fine ever since...

I have been searching for an answer for a few hours now, but have not be able to find another similar situation... So, I am turning to you folks - any thoughts, ideas, suggestions, requests for more info... ever heard of anything similar happening? I am guessing that the issue may be with the PSU, but am really not sure...

Thanks

Harm_ME

 

:wave Welcome to Major Geeks! :major

Having to push the power button 4-5 times before the PC stays on is a bad thing. A very bad thing. Personally, I would leave the PC off and unplugged. Try a different power supply. If you have a friend or know a 'techy-type' person with an extra, maybe you can borrow one for a day or a couple hours. When you hook up the power supply, be sure that nothing is plugged in to the old (possibly faulty) power supply. If the PC powers on and stays on, great- you're done. If not, then the problem is likely the motherboard. Look very carefully at the capacitors on the motherboard....

Normal healthy capacitors look like this:
http://tbn3.google.com/images?q=tbn:l-O3uyAZWlRbFM:http://www.hardware-one.com/reviews/msi6309/images/capacitor.jpg http://www.fotosearch.com/bthumb/GLW/GLW137/gwc118050.jpg

Leaking/popped capacitors look like this:

http://tbn2.google.com/images?q=tbn:Y5WuxQTQI_nreM:http://www.op911.net/photos/story/capacitor.jpg http://tbn3.google.com/images?q=tbn:n6qnVlzrMn1XaM:http://i.ehow.com/images/GlobalPhoto/Articles/2162895/BadCapacitor01-main_Full.jpg

Sometimes bad capacitors won't actually have the crud leaking out the top as in the pics above, but if the top of the capacitor is not PERFECTLY flat, then it is failing. Even a very, very slight 'popped' top is bad news. However, even if all the capacitors look OK, there's still a chance the motherboard is failing, and unless you have access to a bunch of replacement components for testing purposes (like extra CPU, extra RAM, extra hard drive, etc), then you're pretty limited as to what you can diagnose yourself. You can also check the CPU fan; if it's loaded with crud and/or not spinning free and easy, that may be the reason for the shut-downs....