Problem booting

[MarkHoward]

Hi I'm a newbie here.
5 year old desktop computer Win XP Pro

Normally to start this computer it is Power on at the wall then press button on front panel.

Last few mornings its gone like this and getting steadily worse:

Power on at wall - front button - starts to boot, may get as far as Welcome screen - then turns itself off
Press front button - nothing
Power off at wall - wait - power on at wall - immediately starts to boot (ie no front button) but only progresses for typically 5 seconds (sometimes 15 secs) before shutting down.
Do this umpteen times - maybe 5-10 mins and eventually the boot completes.
Once booted runs fine all day.
Once it's been running, if I shut it down and reboot, it comes straight back up - no problems.

Any ideas?

 

[idunno]

now when it shuts down, does that mean it doesn't display your bios screen, check the ram, etc.
have you ever gotten checksum errors while installing programs? what is your cpu? have you looked
at your components? is there alot of dust on your mobo?
what i get is that your pc is rebooting during the windows xp loading screen. but you say no fron't button.
maybe you have a faulty switch? which i would say is rare... damn man.. need more specifics
my computer has the complete opposite as yours, it will only boot after "cooling off" for an hour or so.
seems quite odd to have a faulty power supply to not be relaying that power to your comp. this is
just filler until someone more qualified can reply..

 

[ryantruck]

Will the computer stay on if windows xp doesn't boot ? like go into the bios menu does it stay on if you do that ? if it stays on you can try to boot into safe mode to.

 

[MarkHoward]

now when it shuts down, does that mean it doesn't display your bios screen, check the ram, etc.
Most of the time doesn't get to the BIOS screen - maybe just turns lights on keyboard on and then dies.
have you ever gotten checksum errors while installing programs?
No.
what is your cpu?
2xPentium 4 2.6GHz
have you looked at your components?
What?
is there alot of dust on your mobo?
No

what i get is that your pc is rebooting during the windows xp loading screen. but you say no fron't button.
Sorry - don't understand this.
maybe you have a faulty switch? which i would say is rare... damn man.. need more specifics
I thought I was being quite specific - please ask more questions if you need more information.
..

Will the computer stay on if windows xp doesn't boot ? like go into the bios menu does it stay on if you do that ? if it stays on you can try to boot into safe mode to.

If the computer stays on it does boot - the problem is that usually the power dies before the boot is completed. AND It is not failing at the same point each time. (Later Ah - I see what you mean. I will try that when I can a) It only happens when I first start up - so: tomorrow morning and b) I'll see if we can get through to "Safe" mode. My gut feeling is that this is completely independent of where the boot is up to - it is more electrical.

I have been using computers (not expertly) for 35 years and this feels like a power supply problem but before I go a and buy one I was hoping that one of you smart cookies would be able to say "Yep - definitely sounds like it - because of this and this" or "No- it probably won't be that - because of this"

 

[idunno]

sorry, im not one of those cookies, my pc isn't booting and i was told, only within 8 hours or so that its because i have bad capacitor's on my mobo. check this out http://www.daileyint.com/hmdpc/manual.htm
it references a book and the charts are mostly useless but i figured i'll drop it here sometime. someone should come along hopefully within the next day or two and assist better, in the meantime, take my bump.
EDIT: PSU's are cheap and you can allways use it in your new PC =D
also i just looked at your response to my quote, pentium 4's are VERY HOT imo, therefore the lifetime shot to nothing. thats why i ask about the dust,
and by compnents i mean a brief look at your mobo for any damage. and i only ask about if it goes to the windows loading screen (checksum errors) cause then it would be
more hardware based than a mobo failure/psu failure. anyways like i said baffles me. good luck
35 years =D interested in buying a trs-80 ???

 

[MarkHoward]

Thanks idunno - that's an informative link.
Problem with my situation is that it is not consistent.

I tried a seat-of-the-pants fix this morning. It is winter where I am.
I squirted a hair-drier on "hot" into the power-supply for 4 minutes before trying to boot this morning.
Booted straight up.

Does that give anyone any clues as to why this might be happening?

 

[MarkHoward]

Found that the computer would reliably boot every time if I squirted a hair-drier into the PSU for only half a minute before turning on. I have now replaced the PSU and all is sweet. Thanks for the help.
SOLVED