Intermittant POST

[great_big_abyss]

M5A97
1055T
Corsair Vengeance 2x4GB DDR3 1600Mhz
GTX680
GTX570 (although the problem preceded the installation of this card)
PC&C 750W PS
128GB Crucial M4 SSD
500GB WD Black

My rig runs stable when it's on. Everything is more or less fine. However, when I restart my machine, the bios splash screen comes on, but nothing posts. The computer will hang up on the splash screen. I have to do a hard power off (via the PS), wait 30 seconds, then power up again. The computer then posts. However, after posting, instead of immediately booting up windows, the splash screen will remain for about 10 seconds, then boot into windows.

I have to follow this procedure everytime I reboot.

Also, I had a 24\7 stable 3.7Ghz OC on my processor, but yesterday I rebooted (following that procedure) and was informed that the OC failed, and everthing in BIOS was returned to stock. WTH?
1055 OC specs - how do they look?

I suppose I need to find some time to troubleshoot, run 1 stick of RAM, switch out the PS (luckily, with the multiple rigs in the household, there are many duplicates of everything), but in the meantime, could it be something simple that I'm not seeing?

[stoanee]

I would start with ram, then psu. Ram is easy to check and I had the very same psu crap out on me so now I am biased against them.

[frontier204]

If you don't have the time to dismantle, start with peripherals. I have a motherboard that won't POST from cold reboot if a USB 2.0 hard drive is attached, for example.
See if the problem is still there if the only thing you have connected is the power cord and the monitor. If that works, then start slowly adding things until it fails again.

[great_big_abyss]

Okay, thanks.

I hope it's something simple like RAM or peripherals. If it's the Powersupply, I'm going to cry. Simply because I'll need to rip a powersupply out of another rig, then put it back in after testing (and remanage all the cables), and that's a HUGE pain in the ass.

If it IS the powersupply though (and I'm starting to think it is, just from the symptoms) that will give me an excuse to pick up a nice modular unit from Corsair!

[great_big_abyss]

Update:

It was a dysfunctional USB stick that was in the back of my rig. I removed it and everything works now.