Computer won't boot

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January 26th, 2006, 10:18 AM
MorseLady

Computer won't boot

My husband's XP Home SP2 computer which is less than a year old has suddenly refused to boot. It has got into a loop sequence where it starts to boot then after a few seconds shuts down and immedately starts up again and only pulling the plug can stop this. During the attempts to boot I cannot open the CD/DVD drawers to insert a disc and it does not stay on long enough to get in to BIOS or safe mode. The XP logo does come up on the screen sometimes but never longer than a few seconds before it all starts again.

Any ideas what is wrong and what I can do before we call Evesham out please? Although the computer is new my first thoughts are failed PSU, or some sort of virus despite having AV of course.
January 26th, 2006, 11:00 AM
BOB IROC

Could be malware

I actually worked on a couple computers recently that had similar symptoms. I ran all sorts of diagnostics and could not find a hardware problem. I ended up temporarily installing windows on another harddrive so I could attempt to salvage files for the customer. And out of curiousity I ran scans and found all sorts of Spyware and a few viruses.

Can the computer boot in safe mode by pressing F8 before the Windows Logo Splash screen comes up?

There are many good diagnostic utilities on this website http://www.majorgeeks.com/ that maybe can help you pinpoint your problem.
January 27th, 2006, 07:30 AM
Platypus

If it normally doesn't stay on long enough to get into the BIOS setup screen, then probably a faulty PSU, or faulty/unseated memory would be my first thoughts.
January 27th, 2006, 10:50 AM
Stalemate

Quote:

Originally Posted by Platypus

If it normally doesn't stay on long enough to get into the BIOS setup screen, then probably a faulty PSU, or faulty/unseated memory would be my first thoughts.

Quoted for truth.

Took me 3 weeks to properly diagnose a similar case on my personal PC, since it was often booting into Windows before rebooting and was letting out a clicking sound very similar to the one hard drives make when failing.

PSU was it in this case, and as it progressively grew worse it shortened the length of operational time to the point where it was doing exactly what you report here.