[depawl]

On an emachines Celeron 2.60 running XP, as soon as I plug it in, the power supply fan starts, all 3 keyboard lights flash on and off, and the hard drive and floppy make a continouous clicking sound. When I press the power button, it starts normally.
I swapped out the RAM, PSU, and processor, makes no difference. I removed the power switch wires from the motherboard, and shorted the jumpers, same result.
As soon as I turn it off, either via the switch or normal Windows shutdown, same thing happens.
Any ideas? About the only thing left I can think of is a bad MB, although (for now) it appears to run normally after startup.
Thanks.

 

[kiwiguy]

Check the BIOS settings, make sure that any selections for "power up" are set to "remain off" (exact wording will vary between BIOS versions).

Some BIOS have an option to boot the computer as soon as AC power is applied to the PC, normal setting is to have that disabled.

 

[depawl]

Well it doesn't really power up. The psu runs and the hd and floppy drive start clicking, and the kb lights flash on and off.
That's it.

 

[Orinoco]

Turn it off at the wall?

 

[Rich-M]

Power supply is shot, which is common with e machine.

 

[depawl]

Strangely enough, after switching to a different hard drive, the problem was solved (almost). On power up it not longer does the weird stuff, but still does it after shutdown.

 

[Rich-M]

Still could be both psu and hard drive.