Power up does not activate consistently

[loninappleton]

Could be just old gear but this problem occurs after some shut downs. Power up
will turn on the motherboard and gear but fail to 'clck on' the video and go to the
BIOS screen.

Then again it may do that fine.

My specific question to any hardware expert is can this be traced to CMOS (which I reset during these problems) or to a timing element on the motherboard or CPU?

I have considered overheating. But this setup runs 24/7 with few hiccups until
I perform a shut down to commence a disk clone backup etc.

I've tried all the available tricks including press power on until auto shutoff to
empty the capacitors and as said, clear CMOS and also switch the power supply itself off and on.

But it all seems random unti I get the "lucky" start again.

The windows screen may ask to repair or start normal. Another glitch I've seen is
the "Windows is starting up" text but the throbber of the Win 7 logo does not start. At that point one might as well shut it down again.

 

[MeOnMine]

It would appear that you have a boot issue and perhaps your MBR is corrupt.
You need to put in your Windows media and run a boot restore.
Also your specs tell me that you do not have enough RAM for 64 bit OS, you should have minimum 4 GB.

 

[loninappleton]

Yeah MBR refresh was easier on XP. I have never seen repair fix anything with Win7 and wind up going to a backup hd but that doesn't work in this case. As to memory, yes Everest reports just under 4 Gb or 2 x 2 Gb sticks. But my other box on the homenet has half that and does many times more work insofar as computing tasks.