[Sussex] Fault possibly developing on my PC

[Peter Humphreys]

Hello all

I use an older Dell Dimension 4600 as my main Desktop machine and it seems to 
be developing a reluctance to boot up from cold. And, that's getting me 
worried...

Symptoms - Whilst pushing the power switch indeed sets the machine powering 
up, I need to continue to hold the power button for up to 10 seconds beyond 
what I ever have previously, as otherwise the unit turns off again.

From what I have been able to determine online it seems this is symptomatic 
that either the power supply or motherboard might be developing a fault. Or 
the switch?? And, whilst the PSU might be comparatively inexpensive to 
replace, if it's the motherboard I suspect that would take the box beyond 
economical repair. At which point I begine to need another machine.

Question - anyone know who can help me ascertain what the fault is etc ? You 
may remember I am not deeply technical, and any help would be greatly 
appreciated. Or any hint / tip of a reasonable repair person in the Haywards 
Heath area (I will travel a reasonable distance)??

Also, any thoughts on whether it might be best for me to leave the computer 
running on 'suspend' which is an option on shutdown, rather than actually 
turn it off, which I generally do? You maay recall I use KDE running on SuSE 
11.0. How about trying a restart - which I haven't dared .....to see whether 
the machine does actually power up by itself?


Help!

And, thanks

Peter Humphreys