No POST, no beeps, sometimes?

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Hello, I'm new to these boards and hopefully I'm posting in the correct location, but I've been this problem lately, that my computer won't boot on the first attempt. I'll press the power button and I get the green LED on front but not the red one for the hard drive, and the CD-ROM has no power. But all of the fans in the case have power, including the CPU heat sink fan, and the video card fan. But on the second or third time, it kicks on and posts and boots normally. And I haven't recently changed anything in my computer that would cause this.

And the weird thing is I've opened my computer twice now, reconnected all connections, reseated everything, except the CPU and heat sink. And after doing so my rig works fine for 1 - 2 days (boots fine on the first attempt)

Yesterday I took a leap and bought an Antec 650 Watt Power Supply after days of research, finally narrowing it done to what I thought was the solution, and alas it was not, I woke up this morning to find the new power supply did not fix my woes.

To me this seems all to fickle to try and isolate the problem, but thats probably because I'm frustrated. Does anyone have any suggestions? Or I'm I doomed to opening my case and reconnecting everything to get it working until I buy a new comp.

EDIT: If anyone wants more information I'll be happy to provide. Much thanks for any help or suggestions.
 
Please put your System Specs in your Profile

If you have a proprietory computer like Dell; HP; Acer etc, please manually write this in the mobo field (ie Dell Dimension 3100 - as an example)

Can be faulty Motherboard to HardDrive connector causing it (just that I had this once)

Also once the frustration calms down, you could bench test your system
Bench testing helps in removing all dust and debri as well
 
Could be any of a number of device failures... cpu fan, BIOS battery, power switch, hard drive, any device in a PCI slot, optical drive failing, memory module, video card, or hard drive.
Do you have a floppy drive in that unit?
A good way to set out on a recovery is to go back to the most basic setup you can create... First, clean the cpu heatsink and fan. Then go to the most fundamental install: power supply, boot device such as floppy disk, if available, or optical drive with disk... One memory module. Hard Drive disconnected.
Boot in regular mode if it, will then boot in SAFE MODE, if it will. Take written notes in some sort of a little chart tracking what you are doing. You are not trying to get it to run programs at first. You are trying to get it to start normally.
If it starts and runs, change to the other memory module... Then add and change components... if you can find one, use another hard drive... and install Windows 98 or something else simple... If it runs in SAFE MODE and gives you trouble in regular mode, suspect the video graphics card...

By process of elimination, you will figger it out... one boring step at a time.

If none of this works, come back to us with the brand and model of computer, or of the motherboard...
 
Oops...

Hey, yea I was rushing earlier and didn't realize that I had to select that I wanted to show my specs of the computer. Well now you should be able to see my specs correctly, If an more info is needed definitely let me know. =D Thanks for the advice already.
 
I'm narrowing it down to the Maxtor, but please follow raybay's advice, and slowly but surely begin the elimination. The bench testing is the proper way to start, as there could be something even under the board, including dust.
 
A lot had happened

Ok, so I started bench testing this morning, starting at like 10AM (it's now 4:00PM) and I thought I figured it out a bunch of times but nothing was working consistently, whether it be not working or working. So I decided screw it, I'm just going to wait till I get consistent fails to see if I actually was making a difference. I hook it all up, I can't get a boot or post no matter what I do....great...So I took everything out piece by piece and nothing, no error beeps no nothing, ok mobo finally kicked it. I started to put everything back in and I said wait let me try one last time, I fire it up and I get a loud beep...obviously. Okay mobo's alive! And I put each piece in one at a time and got it to post every time, and now its booting and the first power on every time. Hopefully I fixed it but definitely thanks for the help guys! It was great not having jerks respond when I was frustrated! =D

oops can't edit the title, sorry for the typos
 
That's great news, but let us know if it happens again (ie it happened the first time!)
Also your title of your last message contains no typos !?
 
Cool, i'm glad it works. I had an issue like this before where the computer wouldn't boot at all and after i remove every part of it and put it back together in the case it miraculously booted.

Good luck
 
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