Double power up at boot - new system

DBR

DBR

DBR

Associate
Joined
12 Jul 2010
Posts
5
Hi all

Would appreciate a bit of help for an odd power-up situation on a new build.

Basically, when I start the PC from a cold start, after the power has been turned off at the plug overnight, the system powers up briefly (fans on, HDD light on, etc) then powers down by itself and then, after 5 seconds, powers up again and this time boots properly.

After this the system is stable (Prime95 for 5 hours - no problems) and everything works as it should.

Also, if the wall socket has been left on, this doesn't happen and the system boots normally.

It's not a huge problem but I don't understand why it's happening. The only thing that I can think of is the fact that it's a dual BIOS mobo and I've been changing settings to OC the i7 920 to 3.4Ghz - a couple of times during the OC process the BIOS reset to failsafe defaults so I'm wondering if the BIOS that now is OC'd correctly is not the 1st BIOS to load during start up and the non-working BIOS tries to load first, doesn't post and then the mobo launches the other BIOS which is optimised correctly. Could this be the case?

OC settings are pretty mild - RAM voltage upped to manufacturer specs and BCLK set to 165 x 20 (21 on turbo). Turbo and hyperthreading on and pretty much everything else (apart from underclocking the memory) set to Auto. EIST is on and underclocks to x12 when idle.

System specs are:
Antec 1200 Case
Antec CP 850W Modular Power Supply
Intel Core i7 920 D0 Stepping (SLBEJ) 2.66Ghz (Nehalem)
ThermalRight Ultra-120 eXtreme-1366 RT Rev.C CPU Cooler
Gigabyte ATI Radeon HD 5870 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
Intel X25-M Gen2 160GB 2.5" SATA-II Solid State Hard Drive
2 x 1TB Western Digital WD10EARS Caviar Green 3.5" SATA II Hard Drive (RAID-1)
Kingston HyperX 6GB (3x2GB) PC3-16000C9 2000MHz Triple Channel Memory
Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R Intel X58 DDR3 PCI-Express Motherboard
LiteOn IHAS524-32 24x Internal DVD±R/RW SATA Drive - Black
Pioneer DVR-S18LBK 22x Internal DVD±R/RW SATA Drive - Black

Any ideas as to why this is happening?

Many thanks in advance for any suggestions/solutions.

Oh...and one more thing: I use a d-link DWA 140 wireless n adapter but can't get it to work on the new build with Win7 64bit. Works fine on WinXP 32 bit. Tried all available drivers. Win7 says that the device is working properly but there's no flashing light and no wireless connections found (i.e. adapter is not powering up) - anyone else have a similar wireless n problem with Win7 64bit? Have you managed to solve it?
 
Been fiddling with the build for a week so I really can't remember but it's easy enough to check when I get home tonight. I'll give it a go with the failsafe settings and see what happens. Thnx.

But...why would it boot normally from a cold start if the wall socket has been left on and connected but not when it's been turned off?
 
Happens with most, if not all, Asus boards and I think its the same with some Gigabyte boards.

Can't remember why, But its relating to the overclock and nothing to worry about.
 
used to happen to me, though I can't remember how I fixed it. Probably fiddled some wires or re-plugged some.
 
happened on an Abit board i had, there was a bios flash addressing it, wasn't serious just annoying.
 
Well on asus boards, afetr a power off, ie unplugged at wall, they all do this
It is to precharge the capacitors in the board prior to firing them up for good
So it is usually normal, if you leave the system plugged off, and shutdown, rather than switch off at wall after, so the mobo always has atrickle of power, you'll liekly find it stops occurring
 
Ta very much all.....seems like general consensus is that it's because I've overclocked the board and that it's normal.

However...should this be normal? I've overclocked other builds before and it's never happened and another of my PCs has the Asus P5E Deluxe mobo and that doesn't do the same thing.

I realise that it's not serious and I can live with it but I'm a bit of a perfectionist and I'm pretty sure that it shouldn't be happening.

BTW, does anyone have any ideas about the wireless n adapter? Just can't get it to work with Win7 64bit - is this a hardware problem with the adapter or a software problem with the drivers/64bit combination?

Cheers
 
I have an Asus m4a77d, with unlocked cores, I haven't tried OC'ing yet because I don't know my temps.

I've never had a problem like this, when I come off the PC, I switch off the PSU at the back then at the wall.

Boots first time everyday. Might just be because yours is new and needs wearing in?
 
Here's my theory - would be great if there's an electrical engineer on this forum that can confirm this or not:

At first boot, after the system's been unplugged, the CMOS settings are hardwired to the default options because there's been no 'trickle' power coming from the cable to keep the previous OC'd settings.

All the board leds light up as it starts in default CMOS mode, realises that there are software OC instuctions in the BIOS that overwrite the board's hardware settings, the system powers down to then restart with the correct OC'd settings.

If the system is left plugged in, the 'trickle' power from the cable keeps the OC BIOS settings 'live' so that when it starts again there is no need to reboot to the correct settings.

Thanks for all the replies so far. Quite glad that it's not a power or mobo problem!
 
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