Computer hardware problem...

[Alex Franke]

The power switch on the front of the computer used to turn the computer on just fine. Now it does nothing until I turn flip the switch on the back (on the power supply itself) off and back on again after a few seconds. Then the front power switch will turn the computer on again.

Any ideas? Does this mean my PS is dying?

[Hoakie]

Check Control Panel -> Power Options - > Advanced (tab). there are combo boxes on the bottom that may be affecting the buttons behavior

[tedkitch]

Alex, I had one behaving in this fashion and it wasn't the control panel settings or anything in the BIOS. I ended up replacing the power supply and that fixed the problem.

One other thing that I have seen happen is on many computers there is a cable going from the front switch to the motherboard. You will want to see that this switch is making proper contact. However, based on the symptoms that you were expressing, I would suspect that it is the power supply.

HTH,

[crokett]

Power supply. Basically it is not sensing the button push on the front of the PC. flipping the switch at the back resets it so it can.

[cgallery]

Or, it could be the motherboard. Examine the motherboard for leaky caps. If you don't find any, try a power supply. Good luck!

[parnelli]

Or it could be the button. Unless we're talking an old computer, the button will have two wires that will plug onto two pins on the motherboard and not directly to the power supply. If you remove this plug, you can try shorting those same two pins with a small screwdriver.

Be warned!- A modern motherboard has electricity in it if it's plugged in even if it IS NOT ON. Don't go poking around other areas except for those two pins. It's not enough to hurt you, but you could hurt the motherboard.

Second- immediately before you go to short those two pins, ground yourself to something to dissipate any static electricity.


Between everything in this thread I think it's got to be one of the suggestions.

[Alex Franke]

Ahh, so now I know where to start looking. I think the actual switch is good because it works find after I reset the power supply. So I think I'll focus on the pwer supply and then the mobo.

Hmm.... Power supply seems the logical (cheaper) place to start, but if I start with the mobo, I can make a better case to upgrade. mobo upgrade = cpu upgrade = memory upgrade = graphics upgrade, and heck, you mind as well throw in a new case and poswer supply while you're at it!

Thanks for all your help on this!