PC Switch ON Problems
 

When I press the Power Switch on my PC, nothing happens for up to 20 minutes. Then it mysteriously powers up in it's own time.

Can anyone tell me what I need to do to cure this. I've tried de-frag and disconnecting the power socket, all to no avail. In fact it seems to be getting worse in that it is taking longer to make up it's mind to start up.

I would be grateful for any help.

At a guess I would say that you built this PC yourself? I ma guessing that the power suply you have is not the right one for the board you have and it's taking time to get primed before the system board is enabling power up.

If it is a branded PC then get in touch with their support.....

What does this button do,

I am afraid that if I had built the PC myself it would never have worked. It is a standard ex PC World Advent 3031 and is well out of warranty. So far I have found that access to technical support from PCWorld to be frustrating and expensive (phone bills) but I am persevering.

I would try changing the motherboard battery. Bit of along shot (nothing in your post indicates that this is definitely the problem), but the long boot time could be down to the BIOS configuation information being lost due to a flat battery. Most modern PCs will autodetect the hard disk etc. on boot up, if the BISO configuration has been lost, but this may take time while it tries all the configurations it knows about.

The age of the machine suggests that the battey could well be flat.