Hello everyone. I have a strange problem and am wondering what you guys think of it, since I only know enough about computers to cause myself problems.

I have an AMD Athalon 3200+ on a Gigabyte board, 3 gigs of ram, which is new (Newegg), a decent graphics card, 2 wester digital hardrives, on a striped raid setup, and only one problem:

Whenever my computer restarts, or reboots, or even is just turned off, it won't turn on again. The lights come on, the discs turn (you can hear them inside) and the lights go on the dvd drives as they're checked, but the computer doesn't POST. It doesn't cause an error beep either. The screen just tells me that there is no longer a signal and the computer just sits there. The lights are on, but nothing is home.

The only solution so far is to turn it off (by holding the power button for five seconds or so) and then letting it sit there for about 1/2 an hour or so. Then, when I turn it back on, it POSTs NORMALY and runs fine. Without this period of rest or whatever, it just won't rePOST. And it doesn't give me an error, it's just like it doesn't do it. And the computer isn't hot at all. It's running very cool, as a matter of fact. I think this began over a year ago when I was checking out my board's dual BIOS feature, and I think I addes some electrical safety feature, but I've checked and I don't see this feature anymore, and the safety features that are there are off. Like I said, I just thought of that a year after the fact, so my memory is fuzzy. I set the BIOS to default long ago, with no effect.

So, has anyone heard of anything like this before? No error, just a computer that won't reboot without a waiting period? Even if I hit the Reset button while Windows is starting. Just won't start without a rest. Very annoying, actually.What kind of BIOS? CMOS?Yeah, I'm sorry, my question isn't very informative or helpful. I'm posting from work and typing with what I remember off the top of my head. It's a GIGABYTE GA-7N400 PRO2 Socket A (Socket 462) NVIDIA nForce2 Ultra 400 ATX AMD motherboard, if that helps at all (thank god for Newegg Invoice History so I could look it up).

Once again, sorry for the lack of more information, or more CLEAR information. I can't use my computer at hom right now so am doing this from memory at work. The reason I'm posting is because I'm fixing a hardrive issue right now (on the computer) and repairing my Windows XP Pro (bad SECTORS, damaged boot.ini) and the failure to reboot the computer has is REALLY slowing me down, as you can imagine. I know how to fix the harddrive issue, but the OLD issue with my computer having to pause before starting up again is making a simple matter a complicated one.

Thanks for any help or advise, and I apologize again for the lack of more information.Have you tried flashing your BIOS? Try pulling the battery and then removing your shirt- that LAST part was a joke, you should probably wear clothing when working on computers. Leave it out for, oh, an hour at most. This should make your BIOS reset- otherwise you may have to resort to jumping it and that can be dangerous, as anyone who has ever been in a fight with a computer can tell you.DLoad and run the HDD diagnostics on that drive to see if it is failing...
Other than that this sounds like a heat/PSU issue...Thank you both very much. When I get my other issue corrected I'll try both of those.

And, yeah, I was suspecting a Power Supply issue, but I didn't want to since it was a Thermaltake, with a good fan, 400+ watt, fairly newish, and I thought that over 400 watts really should be enough, but you never can tell.

Thanks again guys.Even Thermaltakes fail ...they are one of the better brands though.
Swap in a known working one of the same wattage or GREATER to test this...