Takes 5+ tries to get my computer to boot

This is probably the oddest behavior I've ever seen in a computer. It's a home built rig. The specs are:
AMD Phenom II 965 BE
Asus M4A79T Deluxe
4GB Crucial DDr3 @ 1333mhz
XFX Radeon 5850
OCZ Vital1ty 750w PSU

This is what happens when I try to boot my computer after school:
I'll press the power button and hear it beep, signifying POST, the light on the monitor turns from green the yellow and the computer sits there dormant. I hold the power button for four seconds to turn off the computer.

2nd try booting, I press the power button. It beeps (POST?) the light on the monitor turns green, the harddrive spins and then stops. The light stays green for a few more seconds and then turns yellow. I just press the power button at this point and it shuts down.

3rd try booting... same as the 2nd try

4th try booting, this is the odd one. I'll press the power button and either see the BIOS screen all fragmented, or I"ll see a black screen and then the Windows boot message saying "contiue system resume / delete restoration data and proceed to system boot menu" This would be relieving however theres a white screen tear going vertically up the monitor, when I press up on the keyboard to highlight continue the monitor flickers black, I hit enter and the computer does nothing. Hold the power button, fans stop I press again to boot a 5th time.

5th try booting.... The computer boots and the fans are noticeably quieter then they just were when I turned off the computer, the computer POSTs fine and boots windows like nothing happened. I can hibernate, restart and suspend all I want for the day and the computer will boot fine. This problem wont come again until I come to the computer after school tomorrow.


As you can see this is an extremely odd issue, I'd guess it's the motherboard since I just got it replaced; however the previous motherboard (same model) had booting problems and the computer would refuse to work for days on end. The only other part I RMA'd was the GPU, it had a defective cooler. I ran a MEMTEST and the computer passed 8 cycles at stock speed. Nothing is overclocked.

My first suspicion would be the motherboard and second the PSU. Do you have another PSU you could stick in it to test that one?

Are all your settings at stock and are your relying on bios defaults or did you set things with manual settings? Overclocked?

Weird. Do you have a NB voltage option? If you do, try bumping it up a notch. That has fixed cold boot issues for me in the past. But it's weird that it's so consistent...

trents said:

My first suspicion would be the motherboard and second the PSU. Do you have another PSU you could stick in it to test that one?

Are all your settings at stock and are your relying on bios defaults or did you set things with manual settings? Overclocked?

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No I dont have another PSU :/
I was at custom settings, but without an overclock. I tried clearing hte CMOS and resetting defaults and that didn't help either.

johan851 said:

Weird. Do you have a NB voltage option? If you do, try bumping it up a notch. That has fixed cold boot issues for me in the past. But it's weird that it's so consistent...

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What's a safe NB voltage to bump too?

I think about 1.3v is max safe but just try the smallest increment first.

trents said:

I think about 1.3v is max safe but just try the smallest increment first.

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Okay, I'll bump it one step and get back to you tomorrow, since thats how long it takes for hte problem to show

Its acting more like its getting a video card error from what I am seeing. I will say you have a defective video card or it needs reseated.

Unplug the power supply, remove the video card and re-seat it and make sure to check power supply is plugged into card well also.

Hibernating can cause some issue's also, I would try disabling C1E for a bit and see if the problem still happens.

Its acting more like its getting a video card error from what I am seeing. I will say you have a defective video card or it needs reseated.

Unplug the power supply, remove the video card and re-seat it and make sure to check power supply is plugged into card well also.

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This is always worth a shot, too. What PSU do you have, MikeyMop?

Hibernating can cause some issue's also, I would try disabling C1E for a bit and see if the problem still happens.

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C1E is a processor idle state, not a system power state. C1E and hibernation aren't related, and I'd be very surprised if C1E is the culprit. Can't hurt to disable it, but unless it's the problem it should probably be left on to allow the CPU to step down power.

I have an OCZ Vitatl1ty, model no: OCZ700MXSP (700w) powersupply.

As for the video card, the system is completely stable when it's finally booted. I'll try reseating the video card

but but but, you keep turning the power back off
dont you have a reset button? turn power on, Before it leaves the bios and gets anywhere neer the OS , hit the restet button instead, then what do you get?
did this happen one or 2 times or always?

johan851 said:

This is always worth a shot, too. What PSU do you have, MikeyMop?


C1E is a processor idle state, not a system power state. C1E and hibernation aren't related, and I'd be very surprised if C1E is the culprit. Can't hurt to disable it, but unless it's the problem it should probably be left on to allow the CPU to step down power.

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I never said they where related, I just stated that hibernation can cause some issues. I also stated that I would disable C1E for a bit to rule it out also. If you can disable some items then you can rule them out of the problem. Either way I still think with the monitor not responding and the fans spinning up that it sounds like a video card issue and the system is halting on a video error. Now the question is, is the video card not getting good power from the power supply or is it a defective video card. Who knows could be a defective capacitor slowly letting a change build back up over the many times that it is being restarted until it has stored enough to allow it to finally work.

CgS Drone said:

I never said they where related, I just stated that hibernation can cause some issues. I also stated that I would disable C1E for a bit to rule it out also. I

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Ah. You said "Hibernating can cause some issue's also, I would try disabling C1E for a bit", so it looked like you were implying C1E would fix hibernation issues.

OP, for clarification, does it ALWAYS take 5 attempts, and does the same thing always happen? Have you tried powering it on and leaving it for a minute, then resetting or powering off/on?

johan851 said:

Ah. You said "Hibernating can cause some issue's also, I would try disabling C1E for a bit", so it looked like you were implying C1E would fix hibernation issues.

OP, for clarification, does it ALWAYS take 5 attempts, and does the same thing always happen? Have you tried powering it on and leaving it for a minute, then resetting or powering off/on?

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Boot 2, that senario rarely repeats twice, thus making the 6th boot my successful boot. Other then that this problem is very predictable

It could be several things but with it taking several reboots (which would recharge a capacitor going out on the video card) this is what is leading me to wonder if it is a video card issue, Also you stated you had white screen and tearing then going black. I guess the easiest way to rule out the video card would be to place another one in the system, this is providing you have one or one that you can borrow long enough to rule this out, and try it since it does not appear that your motherboard has an onboard video card. Another thing is that you say you sometimes get strange images of the bios bootup, also you say that you can have it stay fine for that day but after it has sit for a time then the issue presents itself again and again this leads me to think capacitor that has discharged over time and has to build a charge back up in order to function again.

It could be several things but with it taking several reboots (which would recharge a capacitor going out on the video card) this is what is leading me to wonder if it is a video card issue

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Thing is, capacitors generally take microseconds to charge, not seconds. I can't imagine that there's a cap taking THAT long to charge.

If they are working properly they should recharge in a microsecond, but if they have a small leak and are bleeding off they will do this. Its not often that you can find them doing this usually they will just blow and that is that but I have had this happen a few times when working with caps. in my field. But like a said one way to rule this out real fast would be to place a spare or a borrowed card in there to rule it out. Also another thing that could cause it would be a weak solder connection.

take 1 stick of mem out then boot...
if it works better then...........possibly bad mem

mikeymop said:

2nd try booting, the harddrive spins and then stops.

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Looks like a PSU problem.

I took out the video card yesterday and blew compressed air in the PCIe slot, I did the same on the video card. I also pushed up on the video card as I screwed the expansion slot screws in because it seems the power cables were bending it down. Today when I booted it started up first try ^_^ so far so good.

Tomorrow if the problem sneaks up on me I'm going to try up'ing the NB voltage as suggested.

mikeymop said:

I took out the video card yesterday and blew compressed air in the PCIe slot, I did the same on the video card. I also pushed up on the video card as I screwed the expansion slot screws in because it seems the power cables were bending it down. Today when I booted it started up first try ^_^ so far so good.

Tomorrow if the problem sneaks up on me I'm going to try up'ing the NB voltage as suggested.

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Sometimes the tab at the bottom of a video card I/O plate butts against the motherboard tray front edge and prevents the card from seating properly. The tab may need to be bent a little bit to clear properly. I've had to do this many times.