Question : Problem: Power Failure at Start Up

I purchased a computer in the box from Tiger Direct.  It went together easily.  It came with a 500 GB SATA HD and I install it with a 320 IDE as Master and a 320 SATA to be used for storage along with the 500 SATA.  The machine came with one DVD burner and I added a second.

The machine is set to run Windows XP on the IDE 320 and runs fine with no problems.  However, when I add the additional hard drives, the addition causes no issues when running.... they are recognized and file transmission is fine.  However, if I add the additional hardware to the configuration, when I push the start button, the start up jogs.  I need to push the button two, three, and four times before it catches and moves forward to boot up.  I get no error messages or alarms.  The Set up configuration recognizes all drives and positions.  Everything runs as it should, but after it gets going.  I can not get rid of the jogging at start up, unless I remove the additional SATA drives and run with fewer drives.  I have loaded Windows XP on the 320 SATA drive and used the 320 IDE and 500 SATA as storage - same result at start up.  The only thing that prevents the need to jog the machine to start is reducing the number of drives to either one IDE or one SATA.  The machine has never failed to start.... only requires that I jog it several times to get it to start.

Any help on this one.....   how about some direction on which component was most likely the cause of the jogging failure.  

Answer : Problem: Power Failure at Start Up

Well ... the 500W power supply SHOULD be more than ample for this system ... but the symptoms you've described are EXACTLY what you would see with a power supply that's having problems supplying the spinup current for your hard drives ... so notwithstanding the rating, I'd suspect the power supply is the most likely "culprit" here.   The reason it behaves as you've noted is simple:   Hard drives draw MUCH more power when they're initially "spinning up" (just starting to rotate).   [That's why most RAID controllers support "staggered spinup" ... where there's a short delay between the spinup commands to the hard drives.]

Assuming that's the problem, what's happening is simple:  When you "punch" the on button, the power supply can't quite supply enough current for all the drives to spin -- but each time they start just a bit ... and eventually they're not drawing a full startup load (since they're already in motion) => so the system starts.

Not the only possibility ==> but certainly the most likely.