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Old 17-12-2016, 14:20
JasonWatkins
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Couldn't think of any other description

Basically, I'm running Windows 10 on a 120gb SSD drive as a boot drive and have a regular 2TB hard drive attached.

I've also got an NVidia GTX 680 and a 'regular' BluRay burner.

Got a Corsair 80 Rated Bronze 750W semi-modular PSU that's a shade over a month old.

Up until a week or two ago, everything was working fine and the PC was booting up without an issue.

Now, if i press the power switch it'll boot up, the monitor will come on and i'll see the blue windows 10 logo and then <click>. The power cuts and the PC immediately dies.

If i wait about 30 seconds and press the switch again, the PC will then power on and work completely normally. I've had it open to check and all of the fans are spinning and everything is working fine.

I wondered if i was essentially 'forcing' it to boot up by powering it up so quickly after the initial power cut, so i tried it again the other night and pressed the power button and waited it for it to cut out.

Then I waited 15 minutes before i pressed the power button again and lo and behold, it booted up and ran just fine.

So i'm a bit stumped. I'm going to look in to any potential issues with the BIOS and whether or not it needs an update, but I suspect my only way forward is to disconnect everything inside and connect it all back one at a time to try to identify what might be causing the problem.

But then why does it boot the second time of asking and work perfectly ?

Any bright ideas would be most welcome, thankyou
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Old 17-12-2016, 14:40
Stig
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It could be a driver issue. Try unplugging or disabling as many devices as you can to track down the culprit.
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Old 17-12-2016, 14:47
Tassium
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PSUs can develop a fault. Motherboards can develop a fault.
Can a BIOS develop a fault? I suppose, but I doubt it would be intermittent

As for drivers, such a problem is unlikely to be intermittent
.

Not that I know much about these things. However I would consider software as the least likely problem at this stage.


A sudden power loss does suggest the PSU more than anything else.

As for why it behaves that way, there is no earthly way of knowing. Modern PSUs are complicated.
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Old 17-12-2016, 14:53
JasonWatkins
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Thanks

I did some initial googling and found one similar problem where someone suggested taking the BIOS battery out, waiting and then replacing it, which caused it to start working on that person's PC, but i tried that to no avail.

All of my drivers are up to date as well.

I suppose there might be an issue with the actual power switch itself on top of the case, but then again, why does it boot and run normally the second time of asking ?
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Old 17-12-2016, 17:51
misar
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Check in power options to make sure fast startup is not enabled - because Microsoft likes to turn it back on after any serious updates.

If enabled your PC does not shut down even with the power switch, it goes into something like hibernation. One of the relatively recent Win 10 updates "improved" the power options and since then I have had intermittent problems with hibernation. If your PC crashes restarting from hibernation it would then have shut down completely, so no problem when you try again.
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Old 17-12-2016, 18:58
emptybox
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It could well be a problem with the PSU.
Can't see it being a BIOS problem, as you say it starts to boot into Windows.
Can't see it being a Windows driver problem, as that would give you a blue screen error and then restart. It wouldn't cut the power off.

If you have a spare PSU then would be worth trying that.
You wouldn't need to mount it in the case, just unplug the connections from the present one and plug in the alternative one.
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Old 17-12-2016, 19:30
JasonWatkins
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Thanks again. Fast Startup isn't enabled as i've just checked. I did find out the BIOS was actually out of date as it had been updated last year so I updated that and it's made no difference to the problem.

I know it probably won't make a jot of difference but i noticed the boot order was set to try the bluray drive first and then the SSD, so i've switched that around on this boot and i'll try it again later.

As I don't have a spare PSU, since I got rid of the one i'd replaced, i think i'm going to have to try and unplug everything from this one and plug things back in to see what causes the issue.

It could well be the SSD i suppose since i installed that at the same time as i installed the new PSU, although i've run a few checks on the drive and it does appear to say it's operating well.
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Old 17-12-2016, 20:55
Maxatoria
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PSU's are mechanical items and i've seen plenty that if you give them 5 mins to warm up etc will operate fine.

I come from a mainframe background and lets say that you don't let anything warm up or cool down if its possible as the thermal shock can kill stuff leading to much downtime.
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Old 17-12-2016, 21:35
JasonWatkins
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This PSU initially worked without an issue for many weeks. it's only developed this problem in the last week or so.

It's a crazy idea i must confess, but i'm half tempted to try a full reformat of the SSD and install windows 7 again before re-upgrading back to windows 10.

It's probably because i want to leave unplugging everything right until the very last possible moment because i know it's going to be a massive pain in the arse.
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Old 17-12-2016, 22:03
Stig
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It's a crazy idea i must confess, but i'm half tempted to try a full reformat of the SSD and install windows 7 again before re-upgrading back to windows 10.
There's no need to do that. Just reinstall Windows 10 and it will activate.
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Old 17-12-2016, 22:12
LION8TIGER
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I suppose there might be an issue with the actual power switch itself on top of the case,
Could be something to do with the switch. A neighbour had the same initial results when booting up because the switch had worked it's way loose from tower so wasn't clicking on, it behaved just as you described.

but then again, why does it boot and run normally the second time of asking ?
No idea on that one.
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Old 17-12-2016, 22:14
JasonWatkins
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There's no need to do that. Just reinstall Windows 10 and it will activate.
I haven't got 10 on any kind of media though. i have 7 professional (fully legal, legal fans ) and just did the online upgrade when i had the chance.

it won't actually be too much of a problem in a way because i've mapped all of my windows libraries (Music, Pictures e.t.c...) to my other drive, as well as my steam library and other games, so there's no actual need to do any backups as they're already on a seperate drive.

I honestly don't think it's the SSD to be fair, but I guess it could be worth doing if only to eliminate it as a possibility to save me taking the case apart.
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Old 18-12-2016, 01:47
Tassium
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With computers it's best to just try things until it works.
Try with the easiest/cheapest first, then move upwards. (I would leave software to the last because it just does not seem like a software issue.)

So maybe remove the video card (assuming there is onboard graphics).

Why do that? Because you can and it's cheap.


Then, if that doesn't fix it, try er... Tricky.
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Old 18-12-2016, 04:04
RobinOfLoxley
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Make a USB Live Linux stick. eg Ubuntu.

Use Universal USB Installer to burn the iso to, say, 8GB+ Flash and set Persistence to Max (to give it some memory)

Boot the Flash and Try Ubuntu, don't do a full install to SSD/HDD. The USB Flash will then be configured as a working Live stick.

Double check the problem is still present when booting from USB Flash and everything else still connected.

Then Disconnect SSD, HDD, CD/DVD, Graphics Card (if onboard available), Other external USB devices (not keyboard or mouse). Run with only 1 stick of RAM, then test again with a different stick of RAM.

As you are only seeing the problem from cold, trial and error might take a while.


-=-=-=-=-=-=-

You can make a W10 Installation USB Flash/DVD if and when ready to reinstall W10 (after fixing PSU problem)
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Old 18-12-2016, 10:21
JamesE
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It could well be in the PSU or MB with an electrolytic capacitor. Sometimes you can get one which is reluctant to "form" and it takes a while. At your first switch on it is not forming fast enough and one of the voltages is low and it shuts down. At the next switch on it is part formed and soon gets there and everything is stable.

Try leaving it 24 hours for the second attempt - a repeat failure would prove the point. I would spend a tenner on another PSU first before re-installs or other drastic things. Try monitoring the four voltages at switch on and see if one is low.
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Old 18-12-2016, 10:37
JasonWatkins
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Thanks again for the replies. I'll get stuck in to trying them out over the course of today.
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Old 18-12-2016, 12:56
Stig
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Thanks again for the replies. I'll get stuck in to trying them out over the course of today.
What happens if you 'stress' the PSU by playing a CPU and graphics intensive games, for example?

It seems odd the PC fails at boot if it can work fine afterwards. That's why I suggested a driver issue.
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Old 18-12-2016, 13:13
JasonWatkins
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What happens if you 'stress' the PSU by playing a CPU and graphics intensive games, for example?

It seems odd the PC fails at boot if it can work fine afterwards. That's why I suggested a driver issue.
Well i've just been playing No Man's Sky for the past couple of hours without an issue. I don't know exactly how intensive that might be on the CPU, but I know that I couldn't have run it without the graphics card.
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Old 18-12-2016, 14:35
bri160356
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I agree with post #15,… ‘cold start’ problem;… the PSU is the most likely culprit but it could be motherboard,…and then just about anything.

Finding shitty faults like that can drive you loopy,…and they can be expensive;…unless you get lucky first time.

Unlikely to be anything firmware/software related IMHO;…but I could be wrong,…I’ve been wrong before.
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Old 18-12-2016, 15:49
rustytrawler
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Just RMA the PSU, that will be it.
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Old 18-12-2016, 15:57
max99
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What happens if you enter the BIOS as soon as you switch on and leave it for a few minutes to 'warm up'? Does Windows still fail to boot?

As the PSU is one of the most common parts to fail, having a spare is always a good idea. Especially with a problem like this one, where swapping it out might quickly solve the problem or at least help narrow down the cause.

As per a previous suggestion, removing or replacing the graphics card is an obvious and easy step to carry out.

If you have a spare hard drive, do a clean (and basic) install of either W7 or W10 and see what happens.

It's all just a matter of eliminating causes, which unfortunately can be very time consuming when you have an issue which could be either hardware or software related.
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Old 18-12-2016, 16:27
JasonWatkins
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What happens if you enter the BIOS as soon as you switch on and leave it for a few minutes to 'warm up'? Does Windows still fail to boot?.
If it's the first time then yes, it does as i've just tried that. Left it in the BIOS setup for 10 minutes and then did a save & exit and it still cut the power.

Here's the weird(er) thing though. Earlier on, I switched it on and waited and it came up, I saw the blue windows logo and, inevitably, the power cut out and it shut down.

So I physically unplugged it from the mains and left it for about half an hour.

Plugged it back in and switched it back on and it came on and booted up perfectly normally as it was the "2nd Boot", if you will.

When I went back to it an hour or so after that, because the 'cycle' had been reset then it obviously came up and cut the power again at the windows logo.
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Old 18-12-2016, 16:45
max99
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So, if the problem only ever occurs during the first boot-up (even when 'warmed up'), I would now go for a reinstall/reset of the OS. This will be easier if you have a spare hard drive, although this obviously wouldn't rule out the issue actually being caused by the SSD.

Also, have you removed the graphics card yet and switched to onboard (assuming availability)? This is a quick and easy check, so it shouldn't be skipped.
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Old 18-12-2016, 18:10
JasonWatkins
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I took the power cables out of the graphics card and unplugged the DVI connector at the back and powered the machine on and it did stay on, but I can't honestly say whether or not this means anything because, rather annoyingly, the connector for my on-board graphics is the other DVI connector and I haven't got the relevant lead or adapter.

I think i'll try a re-format of the SSD later on for no other reason than it's easy to do as everything important is already on the second hard drive and my NAS drive so i've literally just got the bare bones W10 installation on the SSD with a few utility programs i've installed as well which are easy enough to get from filehippo.

If that doesn't make any difference, i'll probably have to put a pin in this for a while to try and arrange the appropriate adapter for the on-board graphics card. I got the GTX680 from CEX and if it turns out that this is the problem and it has to go back in for testing, I'd rather at least have the option to continue using my PC in the interim.

Thanks again everyone for your input. Been most helpful
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Old 18-12-2016, 18:18
RobinOfLoxley
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Have you any VGA capability instead? Plug into TV if necessary?

Or just keep double-booting till you get required lead/adapter

It's getting a bit close to Christmas to start doing too much that requires back and forward through the post and dealing with new or repair of components
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