Microsoft → [XPHome] Power button doesn't always work

I have to push the power button multiple times to start the computer. But the kicker is sometimes when it's running it freezes and the only way to turn it off is by the power button. I'm thinking that I have both a hardware and operating system issue (Win XP). Any ideas why this is happening?
Thanks,
George

After a freeze, what do your event logs say? In a typical system at powerup or powerdown, the power supply handshakes with a motherboard chip to establish the correct power sequencing... and a failure (or weakness) at either end can cause a handshake failure and force multiple button pushes (or "kill" the button entirely). After certain kinds of freezes on some systems, the handshaking itself may hang up, and the system refuses to respond to a button. In that case, you have to literally pull the plug for a powerdown. In your case, however, it doesn't sound as if things get that bad with your freezes, and the event logs may have some useful information about what's triggering the freeze. How old is your system, in particular your power supply?

Yeah, if when powered off you have issues with a physical power button, that means hardware not software - there isn't any software running at that point.

Random freezes while it's running could be hardware too - although given XP's age, who knows what condition your OS is in at this point.

How old is this beast?

Thanks guys for the suggestions. I'm actually asking this for a friend. Her computer is about four years old. She actually has a guy coming over today to look at it. I'll let you know the outcome.