2008 Macbook Pro startup issue

My 2008 Macbook pro sometimes will not startup upon first pressing the power button. When pressing the button it makes a sound like it is about to startup but then it chirps and shuts off. I have to press the power button a couple of times and then it eventually will start up. Has been doing this for a while. Any thoughts as to what may be the issue?

Here is a youtube video of it happening. If you listen closely you can hear the chirping sound.

YouTube - MOV01043.MPG

Is your machine covered by Apple care? If so, make an appointment with the genius bar and have them look at it.

Does it do the same thing on battery and AC power?

It sounds like it's either the power switch circuitry itself or the power supply which is acting up. The "chirping" appears to be an effort on the part of the PS to start the machine. Once it gets going, you can hear the startup POST chime. I assume that the machine runs OK once it starts?

Regards.

No no applecare, wish I had gotten it.
Does the same thing both AC and battery.
Yes the machine runs fine once it has started up.

Thanks for your input.

Synergy - I also have this same issue. My machine does the same thing with battery or PS. If I hold the power button down a little longer, I get more of a start up sequence, but it never completes.

The chirping in my machine is most definitely coming from the Hard Drive. (Opened Macbook up and put my ear right next tot the drive). Fearing a dead drive, I put this machine's drive in an enclosure and it instantly opened as a USB drive (albeit on a Dell PC running Macdrive).

I post this here in hope that more people posting this same problem might lead to a solution!

Thanks!

Fritznpop,

Have you tried a new drive in your macbook to see if the problem still happens?

Have you tried resetting the SMC here