Question after pressing power button old DIY pc takes 2 minutes to power up

[davidmintz]

When I press the power on switch, nothing happens. Is it plugged in? Yes. Is the power switch thingy connected to the motherboard? Yes. Is the power supply power cable thing connected to the motherboard? Yes. Stumped, I give up for the time being and move on, leave the room. A couple minutes later -- ho, what's that sound? It's this machine powering on at long last. Then everything runs more or less normal, though there is a good deal of vibration, sounds like the CPU cooling fan, and/or the shoddy case that just doesn't fit together tightly enough, but these issues seem unrelated.

This weird scene has occurred a couple times now. Press button, nothing, wait a really long time, boom!

This is the strangest hardware problem I've ever had. I assembled this box about 8 years ago, ASUS something motherboard, yadda yadda, don't even know or remember the models and manufacturers of each component [see update below] -- but will try harder to identify these if anyone thinks it's relevant, but for starters I'd like to ask what people think of this.

Another fact or two: this machine was turned off for a couple weeks and it lives in an environment with a lot of vibration. When I got it running the first time, one of my two SSDs was not mounting, and my Ubuntu Linux was upset about not being able to mount the devices in /etc/fstab. Was its power cable connected to the drive? No, it had come loose; a piece the little plastic casing around the pins had broken off, something I've never seen happen before. Not having a replacement handy, I carefully re-connected it and it's in, though not as securely as it should be. Now it's working. But again, this does not appear relevant to my power-up issue.

So -- sorry for the verbosity -- my question is: what do you think? Power supply? Motherboard? Something else?

--- UPDATE ---
Some specifications:

Mobo: ASUS A55BM-PLUS
CPU: AMD A8-7600 Radeon R7
RAM : 8GB (DDR3-1333)
PSU: Extreme ATX 450W model RSY-645
SSDs: (1) Samsung SD 850EVO 250G; (2) WDC WDS500G2BOA-00SM50

Thanks!

 

[Ralston18]

Update your post to include full hardware specs and OS information. Very relevant and all the more so with an 8 year old build.

PSU: make, model, wattage age (8?), condition?

Build may need a new CMOS battery.

Configure the POST process to be a verbose as possible so you can observe what the build is doing or trying to do during that 2 minute power up time.

Likewise, once booted look in Reliability History and Event Viewer for error codes, warnings, or even informational events that may have been captured by Windows.

All in all though any sort of loose connection is going to be problematic. Some on and off connectivity that might finally stay on once the build has warmed up and the connection, through expansion, tightens enough to stay on.

Just my thoughts on the matter.

 

[rickypicky5]

When you state "nothing happens", do you mean absolutely nothing - no lights, no fans, no noise, no anything? Have you tried opening the case and jump starting it by shorting the two power pins in your motherboard's front panel header?

 

[davidmintz]

When you state "nothing happens", do you mean absolutely nothing - no lights, no fans, no noise, no anything? Have you tried opening the case and jump starting it by shorting the two power pins in your motherboard's front panel header?

Nothing means nothing -- silence, nothing observable at all. The green LED on the ethernet interface goes on and stays on when I plug in the box but on pressing the power button, nothing but the mechanical click of the button.

 

[davidmintz]

@Ralston18 yeah sorry, my bad, I will try to collect the specs and post them like a good person.

Just wanna say: there's no Windows on here so no Event Viewer (whatever that is 😉) and I am not sure how to capture the verbose POST output but I will try. It's Xubuntu Linux 20.04 with full-disk encryption.

Thanks for the hypotheses.

Update your post to include full hardware specs and OS information. Very relevant and all the more so with an 8 year old build.
[...]
Configure the POST process to be a verbose as possible so you can observe what the build is doing or trying to do during that 2 minute power up time.

Likewise, once booted look in Reliability History and Event Viewer for error codes, warnings, or even informational events that may have been captured by Windows.
[...]

 

[Ralston18]

Okay - moving post/thread from Systems to Open Source Category to solicit more targeted and applicable troubleshooting.

 

[rickypicky5]

Nothing means nothing -- silence, nothing observable at all. The green LED on the ethernet interface goes on and stays on when I plug in the box but on pressing the power button, nothing but the mechanical click of the button.

Have you tried opening the case and jump starting your PC by shorting the two power pins in your motherboard's front panel header? Maybe 'power' wires from the front of your case to the front panel header power pins came loose or somehow got damaged.

Jumpstart PC with a Screwdriver

 

[davidmintz]

Have you tried opening the case and jump starting your PC by shorting the two power pins in your motherboard's front panel header? Maybe 'power' wires from the front of your case to the front panel header power pins came loose or somehow got damaged.

Jumpstart PC with a Screwdriver

Ah yes, someone asked me that already and I neglected to respond, sorry. I have not, but if I do, and it works, what inference should I draw and what should I do about it?

btw that's a cool trick. I hate manipulating those little connectors and pins because on my board -- and with my eyesight and clumsy fingers -- they are extremely small and close together. but! what have we got to lose? 😀

Thanks.

 

[rickypicky5]

Ah yes, someone asked me that already and I neglected to respond, sorry. I have not, but if I do, and it works, what inference should I draw and what should I do about it?

btw that's a cool trick. I hate manipulating those little connectors and pins because on my board -- and with my eyesight and clumsy fingers -- they are extremely small and close together. but! what have we got to lose? 😀

Thanks.

If it starts normally, it isolates the fault to either the power button on the case, the wires coming from the front of the case to the front panel header on the motherboard, or to, whether or not you've connected the wires correctly to the motherboard.

 

[davidmintz]

If it starts normally, it isolates the fault to either the power button on the case, the wires coming from the front of the case to the front panel header on the motherboard, or to, whether or not you've connected the wires correctly to the motherboard.

Of course. That's about what I would expect, thank you. Another inference: it would rule out a problem with the PSU, more or less, right?

Also, @Ralston18 please note that I have added some specs to my original post, as requested. Sorry for asking for help and then getting lost for a few days, and thanks again to all.

 

[rickypicky5]

Of course. That's about what I would expect, thank you. Another inference: it would rule out a problem with the PSU, more or less, right?

Also, @Ralston18 please note that I have added some specs to my original post, as requested. Sorry for asking for help and then getting lost for a few days, and thanks again to all.

Yes. If it starts and runs normally when you jumpstart it, that pretty much rules out an issue with the PSU.