Weird startup problem with new case/PSU/mainboard

I just bought a new case & PSU & CPU fan, trying to build a quieter system. I had a new MSI K7T Turbo2 mainboard, so I put that in the new case, and then moved the guts of my system over. Good news is that it's quiet, bad news is that it starts up successfully every second time I try to turn it on. OK I'll be more specific (system specs at bottom of post):

1. I touch the power button. Fan comes on, case lights come on, keyboard and CD-ROM lights blink normally, but the speaker doesn't beep and the monitor never comes on.

2. I hold down the power button 5 seconds to turn system off.

3. Touch the power button again. System starts up successfully. Speaker beeps, monitor comes on, I can boot to windows and everything is fine.

4. If I don't let it boot all the way to windows, I can touch the power button during startup (don't need to hold 5 secs) and system shuts down.

Can now repeat steps 1-4 over and over - it works, it doesn't work, it works, it doesn't work...

Before I realized that this was just going yes/no/yes/no, I tried several things to isolate the problem: removed all unnecessary cards and drives, swapped memory, swapped CPU, swapped video card, swapped polarity of power and reset leads that plug into the mobo (silly, I know), removed and then replaced the ATX power supply plug, replaced the entire PSU. Swapping memory around was a regular comedy routine - "hey, I just tried that combination and it didn't work - why doesn't it work this time?"

Next thing to try is, I guess, swapping the mobo (ugh - taking the igloo cooler on and off is a huge pain), but I thought I would post this here and see if anyone had any ideas re BIOS settings or jumpers etc... I've built 4 systems with the K7T Turbo2 & never seen anything like this.

System:
Mecca ATX case
FORTRON 350W FSP35060BN PSU
MSI K7T Turbo2 (F17 jumper removed for 133 FSB)
Athlon XP 1600 (not overclocked)
Igloo Silent Breeze 462 CPU fan
1G PC133 SDRAM
WD 120GB HD
2 Memorex/LiteOn CDRW drives
1 Cendyne/NEC DVD+RW drive
generic PCI modem, Netgear PCI NIC


Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

thanks,
-Laurence

I had the same prob.. I flashed the bios to the newest version and it fixed it.. unfortunately that was a really long time ago and I dont remember what was all in that system

Thanks MaximumOC - That was a good idea ... not sure why I didn't think of it after all the ridiculous things I tried. Unfortunately it didn't work ... after flashing the BIOS to v3.6 the problem remains.

Any other good ideas out there? At this point I'll settle for mediocre ones...

thanks,
-Laurence

I got the same problem with my MSI K7N2. It happened after I flashed to the latest version of the BIOS. It almost seems temperature related-happens at the beginning of the day but then its fine after that (computer it in the basement where it's always 65 deg F). I tried reseating my VidCard numerous times but it doens't do anything.

Not much help but at least you're not alone wallowing in confusion!

I had a similar problem with some 8KHA+ mobos a while back- bios flash did it for them.

How are the voltages? I'm just wondering if there might be something funky going on there.........

Last bit- I have a board that does that myself: Newegg refurb that I have had for quite a while now. When it first happened I just did not have a floppy handy to do the bios flash.
I left it too long: when I did finally flash the bios it didn't take right, and I have never been able to flash that board!
(Mine does work, and oc a bit but......)

It sounds like a board problem to me- I think you'll have to swap it out to test.