it starts, but then stops!

[ChrisHanley]

My son has a very sick PC. When the machine is switched on, the fans start, the disk drives spin and the usual led's light on the drive, (not on the keyboard though and no beep) then approximatly ten seconds later it switches itself off.
Can anyone point me in the right direction. Please say if you need more information.
With thanks
Chris

[david eaton]

Originally posted by ChrisHanley
. ... When the machine is switched on, the fans start, ..


fMy first thought would be to open the case, and check to see if the fan on the CPU is running. This could be a heat related shutdown, so while the case is open, clean out all the dust bunnies in the fans etc.

How old is this computer? What processor, memory etc?
The more info we have, the better we can help.

David

[Sylvander]

Hello Chris.
Greetings from the land of the Scots.
You could use a copy of my diagnostic charts.
Download them from here
www.erniek.eclipse.co.uk/downloads/sylvanderdiags.zip
or send me a personal message requesting them [zipped or not] and giving an e-mail address to send them to.
My copies are the first to be updated/amended and I send updates to those who get them by e-mail.

Here’s one possible route through them:

START UP TEST
1. Is the PC dead? No. [You have fans, lights, etc]
2. Did POST appear to run? No.
3. Were there any audible beeps? No. [a single beep indicates successful completion of POST]
4. The Power-On Self-Test failed to complete. [NO POST]

NO POST
1. Are the PSU voltages correct? Check them if you can. If they are not you may have a faulty PSU. Assuming they ARE ok then:
2. Disconnect all peripherals and system adaptor cards except the keyboard and video card/monitor.
3. Does the POST now run? If it doesn’t then your system board [or something on it (video card, CPU, memory)] is faulty. If it does run then:
4. Re-connect the floppy disk drive and run advanced diagnostic software from a floppy disk.
[Get “TuffTest-Lite” from http://www.tufftest.com/free.htm or better if you can. This is simple and basic.]
5. Does the system board pass? If not then it is faulty. If it does pass then:
6. Switch off and re-connect ONE peripheral/adaptor card.
7. Does POST now run? If it doesn’t this last device connected is faulty and should be disconnected. If it does run the device should be tested using the diagnostics and if it fails is faulty and should be disconnected. If it passes it's ok and should be included.
8. Repeat from step 6 until all devices are tested, all faulty are excluded and all working are included, then re-test the system.

If you want to simplify the test for a first attempt at a fix you could assume the PSU is ok and leave out the tests with diagnostic software.

[ErnieK]

Chris
I have a computer sitting in the kitchen at the moment that is doing this.

By carefully watching the desktop during bootup (about 5-10 seconds into it) a message pops up saying "Error Loading User.exe" it then shuts down totally.

My first port of call for troubleshooting it tomorrow will be to try and boot using boot floppy and restore the registry from DOS. Try this and see if it works. (or better yet try seeing if you can bring up the startup choices by pressing F8 continuosly after you press the start button - and choose Safe mode Command Promt Only and do the following (from either way)

At the C:\ prompt typecd\windows\command and press enter
At he next C:\ prompt type scanreg /restore and press enter.

Now choose a date when you know the computer worked(this should be indicated) When you get the message saying registry restored reboot.

hope fully this will work and let you get into windows (at least that is what I am hoping :rolleyes:)

EDIT
Got of my butt and tried it just now - Did not work for me. So get the swearbox out for tomorrow

[Sylvander]

Ernie
Chris gets no single beep, so he has no successful completion of POST.
Therefore this is not a configuration problem and using "Scanreg /restore" to restore his configuration settings would have no effect.
But since he has no POST he cannot get to a DOS prompt anyway.

Your PC is completing POST but it looks like you have software corruption.
You should re-run Windows Setup to repair the Windows installation by fixing corrupted files.
Even better:
If you have a backup of the C: drive, re-format it and restore your latest good backup taken when the system software was working fine.