So, to my problem - here are the details of my computer that I put together myself:
ECS N-FORCE3-A mobo
AMD Sempron 3000+ (I believe, though I'm not positive right now)
Ultra X-Finity 500W PSU
2 x 1GB Kingston RAM
2 x ATA hard drives
2 x optical drives
Running Windows XP
I built the computer just about two years ago now. Over the past year or so I've been having a pretty big problem with it - essentially it will only turn on sometimes. Other times, maybe 3 times a week or so, I will hit the power button and the front LED's will flash and the fans will spin for a second and then nothing will happen. Even if I disconnect all of the optical drives and hard drives, it still won't power on.
At this point I usually disconnect the power cord from the back of it and just wait it out - which sometimes takes a few hours and other times it takes a few days. Once it does turn back on however, everything works perfectly fine.
I'm assuming this is an issue with either the mobo, psu or ram, does that sound right? And if so, how would I go about testing this problem? I don't have ready access to another PSU, I would have to go purchase one, and because the problem is so intermittent, it's hard to tell if a hardware swap fixes the problem, or if it just decided to turn on at that point.
Do you have any suggestions as to how to address this?
Thank you so much for your help!
Mitch