Computer won't POST until it's warmed up

Hardware and technical stuff
1

My 3-4 year old computer thinks it’s a car. Other than summer, it won’t even POST until the CPU temperature goes to around 30-31C (which is what, 95F?). The way I’ve been turning the computer on is to turn the power on, go away for about 5 minutes, come back and hit the reset button. It will then usually POST and proceed.

So, does anyone have any idea what to check and/or replace? (before anyone says this…I did buy a new computer last week…so that’s done already)

specs:
AMD Athlon XP 2500+, zalman al/cu heatsink
Asus A7N8X DX v2.0, bios 1.06 (1 release behind the latest)
Antec mid-tower server case with some kind of Antec power supply
2x512MB DDR 400 ram
1 IDE harddisk, 1 IDE DVD burner, 1 SATA harddisk
ATI 9600 PRO AGP 8x, modified-fanless heatsink

2

If it just started, you’re probably looking at the first signs of a dying motherboard or CPU.

3

Possibly a break in a circuit somewhere? Thus, when it heats up, the metal expands and makes contact. That’s probably not something you can fix, though, short of replacing the problem piece of hardware. :(

4

madkevin: Hee hee, I’ve been living with this problem ever since I built the computer, 4 years ago. I seem to have a very high pain threshold.

Ben: This sounds plausible. I guess it still boils down to me swapping pieces out in any case, but NOW I KNOW.

5

I once had a system that did something similar; it would never cold boot, it would only warm boot (meaning even if it was warmed up, it wouldn’t post if powered off – it had to be reset).

I can’t for the life of me remember what I did though… maybe it was a motherboard or power supply replacement that fixed it eventually when I was doing routine upgrades. I’m just not sure. I always left my system on, so it wasn’t a big deal, but it was a occasionally annoying: “yeah, that’s just my PC… it’s a little weird, just hit reset it’ll be fine”.

6

Yep. A friend of mine had this. turned out to be hairline crack(s) in the motherboard circuitry. The heat would expand the metal and then it would boot fine.

KaoFloppy, if you’ve been living with that since the start, you’ve most likely been living with a defective motherboard (most likely) which should have been returned.

Wendelius

7

Thanks all! I don’t have to waste money or time replacing the power supply. Time to hunt down an Athlon XP motherboard!

+1 rep to all of you

8

My computer’s also acting up… what I think is the cpu fan sometimes makes a loud, creaking, whirring sound on startup until I give it a sharp smack dead center. It’s like my own little Millenium Falcon.