# Pressing Power Button Sometimes Does Not Boot PC



## leimao (Oct 26, 2019)

Hello guys,

I have been using my new PC for more than half a year. The PC works well in general, however, there is a problem that is bothering me from time to time. Sometimes, in the last night, the PC worked fine. Then I turned it off before I went to sleep. On the second day, after I woke up or got home after work, I pressed the power button, but nothing happened. The lights for the CMOS button and Power button on the motherboard at the back of the PC case are on, and I could use the Power button on the motherboard to boot the PC. After the PC was boot, I turned off PC, pressed the Power button on the PC case, the PC could be boot normally. It does not happen all the time, but I would say it happens frequently. I just cannot understand what is going on there? Thank you very much.

Thank you very much for your help.

Best,

Lei


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## sneekypeet (Oct 26, 2019)

Likely a bad case switch.

You could try jumping the motherboard power (+ & -) pins (see motherboard manual or google as to which pins) with a screwdriver a few times to see if doing so reliably works, and it would tell you for sure.


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## leimao (Oct 26, 2019)

sneekypeet said:


> Likely a bad case switch.
> 
> You could try jumping the motherboard power (+ & -) pins (see motherboard manual or google as to which pins) with a screwdriver a few times to see if doing so reliably works, and it would tell you for sure.



Thank you very much for your reply sir. I thought about bad case switch as well. But why the "bad" case switch always work after I booted the PC with the power button on the motherboard?
I will try your suggestions anyway.


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## sneekypeet (Oct 26, 2019)

leimao said:


> Thank you very much for your reply sir. I thought about bad case switch as well. But why the "bad" case switch always work after I booted the PC with the power button on the motherboard?
> I will try your suggestions anyway.



Sometimes they are intermittent before they completely crap out. The part where the chassis switch failed but the motherboard button worked makes me think switch and not board.


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## micropage7 (Oct 26, 2019)

leimao said:


> Hello guys,
> 
> I have been using my new PC for more than half a year. The PC works well in general, however, there is a problem that is bothering me from time to time. Sometimes, in the last night, the PC worked fine. Then I turned it off before I went to sleep. On the second day, after I woke up or got home after work, I pressed the power button, but nothing happened. The lights for the CMOS button and Power button on the motherboard at the back of the PC case are on, and I could use the Power button on the motherboard to boot the PC. After the PC was boot, I turned off PC, pressed the Power button on the PC case, the PC could be boot normally. It does not happen all the time, but I would say it happens frequently. I just cannot understand what is going on there? Thank you very much.
> 
> ...


or you can use reset switch as power switch, just plug the + and - from reset switch to motherboard , just to check if your power switch that bad
the last could from your PSU


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## leimao (Oct 26, 2019)

micropage7 said:


> or you can use reset switch as power switch, just plug the + and - from reset switch to motherboard , just to check if your power switch that bad
> the last could from your PSU


Unfortunately, this high end PC case from Phanteks does not have reset button Orz.


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## potato580+ (Oct 26, 2019)

check m/b /case power reset panel and the cable, make sure no damaged cause by rat
also worth a try reset your bios setup, i once get malfunction and my pc randomly proces reset or even turnoff itself, funny thing i press reset button but it do nothing, and get random bep alert


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## Bill_Bright (Oct 26, 2019)

This certainly could be a loose power button wire, or the power button itself could be damaged or loose. Sometimes, the plastic molding or metal prongs that are supposed to hold the switch in place behind the front panel break or lose tension, or the switch simply pops out. So you need to inspect where the switch is mounted in back of the front panel to determine the method used to mount the switch. Hopefully the front panel is easy to remove. I've seen it where just pushing the switch back in causes it to "snap" back in place and all is good - suggesting it was not properly secured during case assembly. Other times, bending the metal prongs secures the switch back in place. If the switch mount is actually damaged, we have used hot-glue to secure it and that worked from then on too. 

Backup. Sorry, I just looked at your case manual and I see your power button is on top. So instead of the looking behind the front panel, you need to see if you can access the top panel to look at how the switch is mounted and to make sure it is attached properly.

HOWEVER I also note there is a 5 year warranty on that case - don't do anything to void your warranty! Hot glue probably would.

Also, instead of just pressing the power button, press and hold it for 4 to 5 seconds and see what happens. If that works, then it likely is a setting in the BIOS Setup Menu. 

If still no help, then I would suspect the power supply. At least I sure would swap in another known good PSU (even if I had to "borrow" one from another computer temporarily) and see if the problem remains. While SeaSonic is certainly a premier brand, until Man can create perfection 100% of the time, there will always be units that fail prematurely. If the switch is properly mounted and its two wires are securely connected to the 2 pins on the motherboard, and a 2nd power supply didn't resolve it, then, sadly, you might be looking at a bad motherboard. 

One last thing. Are you 200% sure you didn't insert an extra standoff in your case under the motherboard? Cases are designed to support 1000s of different motherboards. So, it is common for cases to have more motherboard mounting points than boards have mounting holes. A common mistake by the less experienced and distracted pros alike is to insert one or more extra standoff in the case under the motherboard. Any extra standoff creates the potential for an electrical “short” in one or more circuits. The result ranges from "nothing" (everything works perfectly) to "intermittent” problems to "nothing" (as in nothing works at all ). So, you might want to verify you only inserted a standoff where there is a corresponding motherboard mounting hole.


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## leimao (Oct 27, 2019)

Thank you very much, all of you, for providing good suggestions. It turns out that, instead of being a mechanical problem, it is more likely to be a power button PCB problem (a capacitor problem). I replaced the power button PCB, and now the computer seems to work fine.


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