Diagnose This Problem

I have this Dell Studio XPS I bought four years ago. Standard i7 breadbox, but I’ve tweaked the components over the years.

The problem that’s been driving me crazy is this:

If I boot the computer from a cold shutdown, it will literally freeze up within minutes of boot. I have to hold the power button to shut it down.

HOWEVER, if I boot the computer from a cold shutdown and then reboot it within a minute, it is as stable and rock solid as any PC out there. It’ll run for days/weeks, no problem. And it stays that way even with continual reboots.

Now, the solution would be to never shut it down, but I’m still interested in the underlying cause. What would cause this kind of behavior? Unstable after cold boot, but completely stable after reboot.

Over the years I’ve…

Replaced the Dell power supply with an Antec Earthwatts 600W supply.
Replaced the Radeon 4850 with a Radeon 6950 (Biosed to 6970)
Replaced the 6GB DDR3 with 12GB DDR3
Replaced the hard drive with an SSD and a 1.5TB drive
Added a Bluetooth USB

A short somewhere? Mine with 16 USB 3.0 devices connected boots up and then stalls at UEFI screen until I press reset. Something about all the USB devices powering on at once throws off my hub or the built-in USB of my motherboard.

Have you tried cold boot into safe mode?

I’ve seen this before. Unconfirmed cause: hairline crack on the motherboard. I never did replace the motherboard, I scrapped the whole system.

Have you fully investigated the motherboard brand and BIOS side of things. It seems to me in this modern era we have had a rise in issues, probably due to the increasing complexity of all the additional stuff that MB manufacturers feel obliged to chuck on a board these days?

I’ve seen forum discussions of the kind of issue you are talking about that often are due to that kind of issue, so could be worth looking into?

Edit: I just re-read your post and you didn’t mention if it has always done this or if it is a new feature? That will have some bearing on if my suggestion above is worth your time. It could just be ‘old age’ of your system even?