POST & PSU Experts: 2-Button Startup "Fixes" POST Delay?

[Groonx2]

Hi, Fellows,

For an entire year, I have been plagued with POST averaging 4 to 10 MINUTES—minutes, not seconds—before the POST beep. After that, the computer goes on up into Windows and operates normally.

Now I've discovered a workaround. If I press the front case Power Button (as normal) and then I press the front case Restart Button, there is a perfectly normal wait of about 5 seconds and then the POST beep sounds and the computer boots. That is with my pressing BOTH BUTTONS, one after the other. (No, the Restart Button does nothing if tried alone, neither when pressed once nor twice.)

The workaround reduces the problem to a triviality. But I would like to know, from experts in the POST process or from Corsair or Gigabyte experts, what is most likely the cause and what they would suggest for me to do to fix it properly. (I have already RMAd the motherboard, but that seemed to do nothing that changed anything.)

There are a lot of kind folk with good guesses, and I appreciate them, but you can imagine that in 12 months of experimentation, I've exhausted the familiar hardware solutions. I'm hoping to hear from someone who is very, very familiar with issues related to this one. Thank you very much.

[wayout44]

It sounds like the PSU isn't producing power quick enough for your system even though the 1 you have should be fine.

1 question though, why are you using 2 mice?

[Groonx2]

Yes, I suppose I'd better RMA my PSU. I've been slow on shutting down my system, because I need it. The workaround made it easy to put it off.
________________

I use 2 cordless Logitechs, a V220 and an MX620 Laser. (Ha ha! Makes it extremely easy to compare the laser, for which the sales hype is essentially fiction.) But these are both very nice mouses, and on my workhorse they serve different functions.

The virtue of the big MX620 is its whiz-through scrolling, so in my Word documents, which are 500-1000 pages long, I can actually "spin" the middle wheel—it is something to see. That one is set to zero-ratchet mode; it is a totally smooth operation.

The V220 is one of the best mouses available. It is much cheaper, but excellent quality. It can out-pinpoint the laser. Mine runs on a slower ratchet mode, so I can easily use its middle wheel to advance photos, for example. I basically use it for fine-tuning in slower work, and my (rare) guests using this computer use it, as they find my MX620 set too fast to use at all.

The fact is that these mouses do have different virtues, and using just one compromises its best capabilities. I bought the MX620 first, actually, and added the V220.

My hands do all the thinking. I would have to look to notice which one I'm using—but I probably use both within any span of 3-5 minutes. Not for surfing or emailing, but definitely for the heavy-duty and detail work that this system is really built for.

Yes, I recommend 2 mouses as a useful luxury for equivalent kinds of work. By the way, Logi does a superb job of graphically representing both mouses on a single system—very nice.

[Lsdmeasap]

Ya I would try testing a different PSU first, do you have an older one or one you could borrow? Start there if you can

Next thing I would think of would be switches since you mention them. Maybe one or both of them is faulty. Does this happen if you fully remove the "Reset" Switch? How about if you switch them around or try one at a time on each header.

Do you have an older case or different system you could borrow the power putton from to test it in this setup? If so try that as well.

Does it happen if you have the case off the motherboard tray and out of the case? If not, then you could have a short somewhere, but not so sure this would cause slow bootups, normally this would cause failure to boot but thought I would mention this in case you had not tested it yet

[Groonx2]

Hi, Lsdmeasap,

Okay, I would prefer to work with the case, so I'll give it a good try first.

No, I'm constrained by having neither swap-in parts, nor friends with them, nor the money to put onto extra purchases. In my years of carpentry, I had many tools and supplies. This is like having one 2x4 and one saw and one hammer: not much room to move!

The Power On button is a light press to the fingers. The LEDs and fans come on immediately. If you did nothing more, you'd get that 4 to 10-minute wait (and maybe much longer) to POST, so something is indeed happening which would very slowly get you there.

But if you press the Restart button as soon as you've pressed the Power On button, your fingers tell you it is a MUCH "stronger" press. Immediately you hear or feel or somehow sense a pause in what happened when you pressed the Power On button, and in 8-9 seconds you get the POST beep. It is as though something much more profound takes over the moment you press Restart—but ONLY if you have pressed Power On first.

I would say the Power On button feels normal, regarding pressure. The Restart button seems to press in at a slight angle and does require more pressure.

These would be really trivial details except for the possibility they're at the root of the problem.