Random boot failure

[MiTz]

My system was working fine for a few weeks and then started with random boot issues, which seems to be related to my old sata1 maxtor drive that's installed as a secondary.

When it first happened i could hear the secondary drives start spinning up as normal, but then it just froze and there was a really faint high pitched noise, like the drive was spinning max revs or something. I unplugged the sata cable and then the system booted as normal, but when i plugged it back in it wouldn't boot at all, there was no response from the power button until i uplugged the drive again.

I changed the sata cable and then it was fine for another few weeks, so i thought that fixed it, until today it happened again. So i unplugged the drive and it worked again, plugged back in and no boot. I then changed the drive to a different sata port and now its fine again

The drive works fine in windows.

So possibilities

1 - The drive has an intermittent fault
2 - sata 1 drives don't play well with 6GBs ports
3 - possibly a dodgy sata port (needs more testing)

Anyone experience anything like this or can shed any light ?

Thanks

 

[MiTz]

Ok the problem's got worse and now most of the time the system doesn't start at all.

Through my frustration i found something !

When i press the button and the system doesn't power on, if i flick the psu switch on and off quickly a few times, the lights come on and then the system powers up.

Does this mean there's an intermittent fault inside the psu ?

or possibly the case switch?

Unfortunately i don't have a spare case or psu to test.

Anyone have this problem before ?