My Sony laptop is acting wired starting maybe a month ago. When I turn on my computer, the first attempt always fails, the system halt during booting, while the power light is still on, but the screen will turn blank followed with a sound like when shutting off. Then, I'll have to force restart by switching the power switch, and then normally the 2nd attempt will go through. (few cases I have to restat again for the 3rd attempt) I've had this laptop for a few years already, and I haven't upgraded any parts recently. I will appreciated if you have any clues. Thanks in advance.

Time for the usual:

Full virus scan on board and on-line. Full Spyware scan anf Hijack this log.

Post results back here

At what point does the boot stop?

Usually failed cold boots that procede when you try a second time by resetting are due to delayed initialization of some device. The boot process tries to detect the device but it isn't ready, so the boot process halts.

The computer halts at few seconds after the XP logo shows up.

I tried unplug all the external devices, but didn't seem to solve the problem. Any suggestions?

I also went thru virus scan and spyware scan.

Thanks both for your previous reply.

Can you boot into safe mode?

Yes, I can boot into safe mode. Basically it works fine at the second boot, just that the first attempt that cause the computer halted.

Can you boot into safe mode on the first try?

No, I can't boot into safe mode on the first attempt. The computer shuts down automatically at the first attempt right after the Windows XP logo shows up, even though the power light is still on.

Try to do a step by step boot and see what device load preceeds the failure.

Does it make any difference if the laptop is powered by an external supply, or running on batteries?