System Restart Incident

Hi.

On a normal restart, the system shuts down and eventually you hear a faint click indicating the power switch has reset, followed by the keyboard LED's (lock buttons) blinking off and back on with the usual brief burping sound from the CD-ROM along with a high-pitched beep from the tower before the operating system restarts in its normal fashion. But recently I encountered a restart where the routine changed. On this restart, the faint click (power reset switch) happened, but the keyboard lights never blinked and the activity light on the tower (one that constantly blinks) stayed lit for unusually long (about 20 seconds) before the operating system started normally. I didn't get any error messages after it was fully booted. On all other restarts, the tower light never stayed lit for that long, and there was always a blinking of the keyboard LED's and a high-pitch beet from the tower (all indicating a complete power reset). The computer has Windows XP SP 2 and the processor is an Intel Celeron E1200 from a PowerSpec motherboard that was manually installed.

Does this indicate that power wasn't fully cut off during this restart or that something might be hooked up wrong with the motherboard?

Any clarification is greatly appreciated.
 
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Does it always do this changed routine now?
It could be that something in the BIOS has changed causing it to not perform the POST correctly. I'm not quite sure though.
 
No, this was first time it happened since the new motherboard was installed, which was about 8 months ago, and it hasn't happened again in the following 4 restarts I recently performed since. I don't restart often, so out of the ones within that time period (I'd say less than 30), this was the first time. The speed at which the sound that the CD-ROM and other components make on startup has been alternating between two speeds for some time (possibly since installing the motherboard): simply fast and slow, but no deviation from the two consistent variations.

Could there be a change in amperage/voltage/electric flow that causes a change in physical performance speed of the components?
 
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