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[Vaj is for Fags]

So, I'm back home for a few days.  I'm trying to sell my PC to my dad, but he wants it to be reliable first before he pays for it.  Fair enough.  The issue is that sometimes it won't start up or after a reboot it won't start back up either.  It won't even post.  But I can never recreate the problem on purpose, it just seems to do it when it wants to. 

Other things we have noticed are that if it isn't rebooting/starting up if we unplug the PSU in the back of the PC it will start back up.  Also, if I pull the cmos battery out it will start up after putting it back in. 

So, one idea is that it might be the PSU, but I also wonder if it is just some weird hardware/firmware issue that is telling the computer to just keep restarting and to not even reach post.  This is the same issue I was having last year, and now I'm just trying to think about it a bit more so I can get my money.

[Agent Orange]

Sounds like the CMOS battery to me.

[Kyosuke D�ęί Knives -Kiss- [OFPR]]

If its HP then its the battery I think. They sent a bunch of emails about problems with their laptop batteries.

Of course this is a PC, and you probably built it, but fuck lets blame HP anyway.

[Vaj is for Fags]

OCZ PSU and Gigabyte Mobo.  So, you think replacing the CMOS battery would be the best then?    I just don't understand why though.

[Kyosuke D�ęί Knives -Kiss- [OFPR]]

OCZ PSU and Gigabyte Mobo.  So, you think replacing the CMOS battery would be the best then?    I just don't understand why though.

Your battery may be dying/cutting out, so it keeps rebooting when it shouldn't. So it will power off randomly then power back on. That is of course my semi-understanding.

[Agent Orange]

OCZ PSU and Gigabyte Mobo.  So, you think replacing the CMOS battery would be the best then?    I just don't understand why though.

If the BIOS won't POST, then either the BIOS chip is bad or its not getting power generally. Since it starts the POST, then that means the chip must be good (its a ROM chip). If the computer is randomly rebooting with no blue screen or anything like that, then that means that likely, it is a hardware issue that isn't the CPU, RAM, or Harddrive, unless they are completely dying, like losing power or something similar.

I would spend the couple of bucks to replace the CMOS battery as that's the likely and most cheap component out of any of the others. I would assume that your BIOS resets all of its settings after the computer randomly reboots. That would indicate a CMOS battery as well, because even if you lost the PSU, your settings would still be saved until the CMOS battery dies.

[Vaj is for Fags]

It doesn't reboot randomly.  As long as the computer is on it will stay on just fine.  The issue is that when I restart it or just turn it on sometimes it will not start up.

[Agent Orange]

some weird hardware/firmware issue that is telling the computer to just keep restarting and to not even reach post.

Sounds like you were getting at it randomly happens in your original problem :p

Anyway, my recommendation is the CMOS battery. To be honest I wouldn't even bother troubleshooting it to anything else. Pop in someone else's battery that uses the same voltage listed on your's or just buy a new battery. They are pretty standard and $5 or less. Its probably a standard 3 volt coin battery, right? Then just change the thing.