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pablo_supertux
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 Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2024 9:45 pm Post subject: PC powers on only after removing the cord from the socket |
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Hi
Lately I've been having some weird behaviour that in the morning when I press the power button of my desktop, my pc doesn't start running. My mainboard (Asus PRIME B460-PLUS) has leds that light up when the power cord is present and I can see that they are on. But the power button just doesn't do anything.
The only thing that helps is to unplug the power cord from the socket and wait a couple of seconds and plug again the cord in the socket. And then my cp will automatically start without having to press the power button again.
I said I'm noticing this lately, but perhaps this behaviour was always there? I have a power strip with a switch and at night I always turned off the entire power strip. Once in a while when I turned it on again, the apartment breaker would trip and I would have to run the breaker. And in the last couple of weeks this started happening more often, that's when I decided not to turn of my power strip and since then I've been experiencing the mentioned behaviour above.
I don't know where to even begin to investigate what the problem could be. Is this a mainboard issue, power supply issue, powers strip issue (had the same with different ones), the power button itself? What should I do? What would you suggest?
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logrusx
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| Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2024 5:55 am Post subject: |
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Try plugging in directly on the wall first, then try to find another power supply and only then go for the MB.
Best Regards,
Georgi |
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fedeliallalinea
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| Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2024 6:09 am Post subject: |
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Moved from Portage & Programming to Kernel & Hardware.
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pablo_supertux
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| Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2024 9:14 am Post subject: |
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| logrusx wrote: | Try plugging in directly on the wall first, then try to find another power supply and only then go for the MB.
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Hi Georgi
thanks for your suggestion. Plugging in directly on the wall will be a little bit difficult as the nearest wall outlet has only one socket. I'll think about to manage that.
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logrusx
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| Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2024 10:23 am Post subject: |
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| pablo_supertux wrote: | | logrusx wrote: | Try plugging in directly on the wall first, then try to find another power supply and only then go for the MB.
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Hi Georgi
thanks for your suggestion. Plugging in directly on the wall will be a little bit difficult as the nearest wall outlet has only one socket. I'll think about to manage that. |
There's another thing you can do. Get a yourself one of those screwdrivers that measure if something is grounded or not and check your socket for proper grounding, including the powers strip sockets.
Also you can ssh into your computer and shut it down remotely if you can't plug the monitor into the wall. Then you only need to see if the computer powers on.
Another thing is to unplug everything else from the power strip prior to trying to turn the computer on.
Best Regards,
Georgi |
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saturnalia0
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| Posted: Sat Feb 17, 2024 1:19 pm Post subject: |
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I would be more worried about the electrical side of things, I reckon the breaker popping suggests either something is drawing more power than it should (too many things on the same cord? faulty electronic?) or an issue with the breaker itself.
That being said if you want to debug the power button issue specifically it's just a matter of mapping the components and testing one by one, as with everything else. Between power button, mobo, psu, power cord, extension cord, and socket, start changing one by one from easier to hardest until you spot the culprit... Probably easier to move the desktop (no peripherals) to another room and plug it in the socket directly and press the button to see if it works, which eliminates power button, mobo, and psu in one go. |
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NeddySeagoon
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| Posted: Sat Feb 17, 2024 1:43 pm Post subject: |
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pablo_supertux,
The breaker tripping is either a transient overcurrent condition or a transient earth leakage fault. It depends on the type of breakers you have.
Both trip mechanisms have precautions to prevent nuisance tripping. At least, they do in the UK.
There are three possible sources of the problem.
1. The breaker
2. The socket strip
3. The PC.
The investigation needs to proceed by eliminating each in turn.
The easiest and least expensive is to test with a replacement socket strip.
Socket strips that provide surge protection have a limited life of only a small number of surges. Sometimes as low as one.
Try a different socket strip with your PC.
Try a different load on the socket strip that you remove from the PC.
If the fault stays with the PC, the conclusion is that the socket strip is probably not the problem.
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lekto
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| Posted: Sat Feb 17, 2024 2:01 pm Post subject: |
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| pablo_supertux wrote: | | (…)when I press the power button of my desktop, my pc doesn't start running(…) |
| pablo_supertux wrote: | | (…)The only thing that helps is to unplug the power cord from the socket and wait a couple of seconds and plug again the cord in the socket. And then my cp will automatically start without having to press the power button again.(…) |
Sounds like a problem with the power button. Are you able to shut down your PC with the power button? If not, does it turn on when you short the power switch pins on the mother board?
Last edited by lekto on Sat Feb 17, 2024 2:11 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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steve_v
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| Posted: Sat Feb 17, 2024 2:11 pm Post subject: |
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| NeddySeagoon wrote: | | The breaker tripping is either a transient overcurrent condition or a transient earth leakage fault. |
To add to that, if you have many things connected to one power strip and power them all on simultaneously (i.e. with the switch on the strip), it's quite possible that while nominal continuous loading is just fine, the combined inrush is enough to trip a breaker.
IME this is more likely if those things all contain switchmode power supplies, which are notorious for inrush and should have limiting devices (e.g. series NTC thermistors)... but in the case of cheap relatively low-power devices often do not. Again fine in isolation, but the effect is cumulative.
As for the PC power button working or not (electrically), that's quick and trivial to test - just unplug the button and short the relevant header pins on the motherboard together with a screwdriver.
The same goes for bypassing the connection from the header to the power supply itself, and the BIOS/ACPI logic in between - shorting PS_ON (green) on the ATX power connector to 0V/ground (any black) with e.g a paperclip should power up the PSU regardless of any signals from the motherboard or power button.
If you have one of those fancy new power supplies that favour aesthetics over functionality and all the wires are black  ... That'd be short pins 15-16 or 16-17 on a 24pin connector.
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figueroa
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| Posted: Sat Feb 17, 2024 10:02 pm Post subject: |
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If replacing the powerstrip doesn't fix things, then two things:
1. You need an electrician to diagnose and correct the regular breaker tripping. The signs are that there is a problem of the type that could result in an electrical fire.
2. How are you shutting down the system. Are you shutting down from GUI or command line? If from the command line, you may be using the wrong command and not actually powering off after shutting down. To halt and poweroff, use "halt -p" or "poweroff" (see man for halt).
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pablo_supertux
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| Posted: Sun Feb 18, 2024 2:39 pm Post subject: |
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Hi everybody,
thank you for the suggestions. I was on Saturday not at home, I could not take care of it.
| Quote: |
Sounds like a problem with the power button. Are you able to shut down your PC with the power button? If not, does it turn on when you short the power switch pins on the mother board?
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I tested it and the power button is OK. I checked it with a multimeter on continuity mode and when I press the button, my multimeter started buzzing. Short presses, long presses, everything worked. I also "made" my own with some ribbon cables (spare ones I had from a "playing" session with gpios on a raspberry pi) and the pc was able to start and stop. So, I don't think this is a problem with the pins and the button.
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How are you shutting down the system. Are you shutting down from GUI or command line? If from the command line, you may be using the wrong command and not actually powering off after shutting down. To halt and poweroff, use "halt -p" or "poweroff" (see man for halt).
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It doesn't matter whether I do "sudo poweroff" or press the power button.
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There are three possible sources of the problem.
1. The breaker
2. The socket strip
3. The PC.
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My socket strip are quite old (at lest 10 years old) and dusty, so I thought about replacing them. I was not able to take care of this on this weekend, I will definitively buy a new one.
| Quote: |
To add to that, if you have many things connected to one power strip and power them all on simultaneously (i.e. with the switch on the strip), it's quite possible that while nominal continuous loading is just fine, the combined inrush is enough to trip a breaker.
IME this is more likely if those things all contain switchmode power supplies, which are notorious for inrush and should have limiting devices (e.g. series NTC thermistors)... but in the case of cheap relatively low-power devices often do not. Again fine in isolation, but the effect is cumulative.
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It's true that my power strip is fully loaded, but with pc related stuff: monitors, an usb3-hub, 12V power supply for embedded systems, two switches and a pc.
One thing I noticed now that I almost have to remove the power cord from the socket daily, is that when I remove it and wait for all the mainboad LEDs to go out and then I plug the cord again in the power strip, large sparkles appear and sometimes they are loud enough that I can hear them. For comparison I used the same socket of the power strip with my old pc and it did not have the sparkles.
| Quote: |
You need an electrician to diagnose and correct the regular breaker tripping. The signs are that there is a problem of the type that could result in an electrical fire.
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I also thought about that, but this only happens with this PC. I purchased it in late 2021, and to be honest I cannot remember having this problem before I've got this PC. I'm sure that this started happening since I got this PC. I haven't had any issue with other appliances either.
I'm beginning to suspect that something with the power supply might not be OK. Like I said, I get sparkles when I plug in the cable, something that doesn't happen with the old PC. And not wanting to turn on seems only to happen after many hours of usage. If I start the pc and 5 minutes later turn it off, then I can turn in on without a problem. I only get the problem after using the pc for a a couple of hours.
I have a be quite! SYSTEM POWER 9 600W power supply, and I was never to happy with it specially because it bundles all cables at once. I started looking only whether people might similar problems with this power supply and https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/possible-faulty-be-quiet-system-power-b9-600w.3728935/ this got my attention. While it's not the same behaviour, this line "Sometimes, however, switching the PSU on after having switched it off would trip the circuit breaker of the room" is similar to my problem (well, to me this happens when I turn on the power strip).
I also found https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/be-quiet-pure-power-9-600w-power-supply,4516.html which seems to indicate that the power supply is not that reliable. I don't know, I have the feeling, that I should get a new one.
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logrusx
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| Posted: Sun Feb 18, 2024 3:25 pm Post subject: |
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I told you already to try with all other things unplugged, did you do that?
Best Regards,
Georgi |
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pablo_supertux
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| Posted: Sun Feb 18, 2024 4:01 pm Post subject: |
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| logrusx wrote: | I told you already to try with all other things unplugged, did you do that?
Best Regards,
Georgi |
Not really, because this only happens after I've been using my PC for many hours, so it's difficult to test it, specially when you also need all the other stuff. What I've done right now is to change the power cable and now it's plugged directly in its own outlet on the wall, no power strip. Everything else is on another outlet. Guess, I'll see if this helped in a couple of hours.
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logrusx
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| Posted: Sun Feb 18, 2024 4:25 pm Post subject: |
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| pablo_supertux wrote: | | logrusx wrote: | I told you already to try with all other things unplugged, did you do that?
Best Regards,
Georgi |
Not really, because this only happens after I've been using my PC for many hours, so it's difficult to test it, specially when you also need all the other stuff. What I've done right now is to change the power cable and now it's plugged directly in its own outlet on the wall, no power strip. Everything else is on another outlet. Guess, I'll see if this helped in a couple of hours. |
Either I have not made myself clear or there's something else you haven't explained.
You don't need anything to try to turn the computer on. You can plug the things afterwards if you so much need them, although this test is only if it'll power up and if the sparks still appear. You can even immediately turn the computer off so that you don't need the monitor or anything else whatsoever to shut it down properly. Even the fastest computers need some time to initialize and load the EFI firmware. If you switch it back off during that time, you won't worry about dirty shutdown.
The idea is, if some of the other devices are causing this, you can identify them through the process of elimination. If the PC does power on and if there are no sparks, then it's something else. Btw sparks in general is normal because there are some transient processes before everything comes to equilibrium when you plug anything. Even when you plug an open wire, but then they are negligible. Maybe the older PC had less powerful power supply, this corresponds to less powerful capacitors and inductors et.c. However filters are still necessary to minimize the effect of those transient processes on other devices and even the grid as a whole. If this vendor decided to cut on costs filters might not be good or not there at all.
Best Regards,
Georgi |
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NeddySeagoon
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| Posted: Sun Feb 18, 2024 4:58 pm Post subject: |
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pablo_supertux,
Sparks from where?
If its at the connector when you plug the cable in with power on the cable, that's the inrush current into the PC switched mode power supply
Its not nice but its fairly common because of the way switched mode power supplies work.
As you have a multimeter. can you measure the 5vSTBY voltage?
Its the purple wire on pin 9 of the ATX connector. It should be 5v whenever the PSU is plugged in and switched on.
Its used by the power button to switch on the rest of the PC so if that's faulty, it cannot switch on.
It has its own power supply circuit in the metal box separate to the main PSU that powers the PC.
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pablo_supertux
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| Posted: Mon Feb 19, 2024 2:04 am Post subject: |
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Either I have not made myself clear or there's something else you haven't explained.
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Yes, you were. I just didn't think about that last time it happened and once it powers on, it doesn't happen for a couple of hours later. That's why I decided to isolate the PC completely and see whether I can reproduce the bahaviour.
| Quote: |
Sparks from where?
If its at the connector when you plug the cable in with power on the cable, that's the inrush current into the PC switched mode power supply
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Yes, it's at the connector.
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As you have a multimeter. can you measure the 5vSTBY voltage?
Its the purple wire on pin 9 of the ATX connector. It should be 5v whenever the PSU is plugged in and switched on.
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I'll try that later. Should I measure it while the power cord is plugged in but the pc not running? Should I remove the (20 + 4 Pin) ATX Power Connector or leave it plugged in on the mainboard?
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NeddySeagoon
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| Posted: Mon Feb 19, 2024 9:08 am Post subject: |
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pablo_supertux,
The power supply must be powered up and switched on, or the 5vSTB will not be provided.
Measure it with the ATX connector removed from the motherboard and again with it connected.
There should be little or no difference between the measurements.
Switched Mode Power supplies are actually DC/DC converters. The incoming AC is applied to a bridge rectifier and a large capacitor to turn the AC into DC for the PSU to work with.
When the input capacitor is totally discharged there is a large 'inrush current' as it charges. This is the cause of the 'snick' sound and occasionally, visible sparks.
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logrusx
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| Posted: Mon Feb 19, 2024 9:57 am Post subject: |
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| NeddySeagoon wrote: | Switched Mode Power supplies are actually DC/DC converters. The incoming AC is applied to a bridge rectifier and a large capacitor to turn the AC into DC for the PSU to work with.
When the input capacitor is totally discharged there is a large 'inrush current' as it charges. |
Still this should not be causing breaker tripping. Even my 300W laptop power supply makes audible sparks when it's cable gets reconnected. It's the same cable as the one going into a power supply, with the same connector, which is lose and the cable gets off from time to time. This does not cause any problems with breakers and even other sensitive electronics plugged into the same power strip. At least the speakers should pop if there's a disturbance so big.
Best Regards,
Georgi
Last edited by logrusx on Mon Feb 19, 2024 10:04 am; edited 1 time in total |
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NeddySeagoon
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| Posted: Mon Feb 19, 2024 9:58 am Post subject: |
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logrusx,
Agreed about the breaker tripping. We are no further forward on diagnosing that yet.
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szatox
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| Posted: Mon Feb 19, 2024 12:27 pm Post subject: |
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Does the breaker even trip in the first place?
Anyway, back to the beginning:
| Quote: | | The only thing that helps is to unplug the power cord from the socket and wait a couple of seconds and plug again the cord in the socket. And then my cp will automatically start without having to press the power button again. |
Those 2 things may or may not be related, so lets try to narrow it down:
Ad 2: Some computers can be set to automatically switch on when power is restored. It is particularly convenient in case of servers residing in remote locations, but there is really no reason to strip this feature from a desktop board.
Does your bios have this setting and is it enabled? / Does your PC start on its own every time you power it up (or at least every time after power failure?), or does it only happen when you press the button, then fail and restore power in a quick succession?
Ad 1: Forcing you to remove power before you're able to boot suggests some state in the hardware not being cleared properly, rather than insufficient power supply. Kinda like if shutdown didn't complete. Warm reboot not working is a rare problem, but it is not unheard of. And it can be a software problem.
It may or may not be possible to boot with reset button instead.
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pablo_supertux
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| Posted: Mon Feb 19, 2024 11:25 pm Post subject: |
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Does the breaker even trip in the first place?
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Not always. And only when I turned on the power strip.
Yesterday I changed the setup and plugged my pc directly to the socket outlet. Today the morning, my pc started without a problem. I don't know how this is going to be in the next couple of days.
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Does your bios have this setting and is it enabled?
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No, it doesn't.
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Does your PC start on its own every time you power it up (or at least every time after power failure?), or does it only happen when you press the button, then fail and restore power in a quick succession?
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It's the later case.
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pablo_supertux
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| Posted: Thu Feb 22, 2024 8:09 pm Post subject: |
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So, I've got news 
I was starting to think that the problem was indeed the power strip and perhaps all the load on the power strip. Since I've isolated the pc on it own wall outlet, I has been booting up without an issue. Except for today, once again I pressed the button and nothing happened. I needed to remove the power cord, wait a few seconds and plug it in back. This time though, the PC did not start immediately (like it did the last couple of times), but it started normally once I've pressed the power switch.
I'm still thinking, that the power supply is the problem here, I'm considering buying a new one. Right?
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NeddySeagoon
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| Posted: Thu Feb 22, 2024 8:20 pm Post subject: |
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pablo_supertux,
Not yet ...
Do the 5vSTB test I asked about further up the topic.
Don't forget the paperclip to short out the power switch to rule out the switch.
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logrusx
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| Posted: Thu Feb 22, 2024 8:34 pm Post subject: |
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I would still check if the socket is properly grounded.
Best regards,
Georgi |
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figueroa
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| Posted: Thu Feb 22, 2024 9:58 pm Post subject: |
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I have found it invaluable to keep an outlet tester in my kit. That would tell you that the power and neutral were correctly oriented and check the ground. I'm sure I paid very little for mine decades ago. I've been many times thankful for my old PC power supply tester. Really fancy ones now run < $20 US.
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Kernel & Hardware
