Help please - computer won't switch on!!

Aiadi

Is it a Medion by any chance?

jackiegats

That all sounds a bit technical for me!! Maybe I need to take it to someone who is a bit more knowledgeable about computers than I am.

No it's not a medion computer. It does start scrolling and the Windows symbol comes up before it cuts out & starts again - i'm getting worried that it might be something serious & i'm hoping i haven't lost everything. Stupidly, i haven't backed up anything - kept meaning to but never got round to it!!

steveeeee

jackiegats wrote: »

That all sounds a bit technical for me!! Maybe I need to take it to someone who is a bit more knowledgeable about computers than I am.

No it's not a medion computer. It does start scrolling and the Windows symbol comes up before it cuts out & starts again - i'm getting worried that it might be something serious & i'm hoping i haven't lost everything. Stupidly, i haven't backed up anything - kept meaning to but never got round to it!!

OK, so it's getting as far as starting Windows before rebooting. That means you should be able to get a STOP error code if you follow what cwoodham suggested. Once you've got this, it's possible to search online and narrow down the cause of the problem. What's happening at the moment is Windows is crashing in a particularly way but it's set by default to reboot immediately if that happens. To get the code you need to stop Windows from rebooting automatically and that means going into Safe Mode.

Booting into Safe Mode is pretty simple, and safe. As soon as you see or are just about to see the Windows symbol, hit F8 lots of times and you should get a menu - one of the options should be to boot into Safe Mode. Choose this and then follow cwoodham's steps.

Your data isn't necessarily at risk and can easily be transferred to another computer if you have the right bits. Just don't do anything rash like formatting the hard drive or reinstalling Windows!

Unless you're really short on time, try to avoid taking it to a shop or paying someone to have a look at it just yet. It'll be a good learning experience to at least try to figure out the root cause of the problem yourself, and you may even be able to fix it!

steveeeee

Aiadi wrote: »

Is it a Medion by any chance?

Mine isn't a Medion either, it's a custom build.

jackiegats

Thank you to everyone for your very helpful replies to my post. I haven't had a chance to try out any of your suggestions yet but will be working on the computer tonight to try and get it sorted - i'll let you know how it goes!

Bucky

It's already been mentioned that it may be a overheating problem. Also when you check the fan it may be worth checking that there isn't any dust that may have gathered between the fan and the cpu.

cwoodham

Don't think its overheating. The PC isn't even booting up. OP has said it never gets to the point where it can be used.

jackiegats

It's definitely not an overheating problem as the computer is not on for long enough for it to overheat before it cuts out. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it's something simple (like a build up of dust) rather than something that's going to end up costing me a fortune or causing me to loose all my data.

CHR15

If the CPU fan isn't spinning, it is almost definitely overheating.

It will only take about 5-10 seconds for the PC to switch off if the CPU fan has failed.

I remember sacrificing an old cpu once a few years back. I switched it on without a heatsink attached to see how long it would last (I was bored!!)
The result was an almost instantaneous flash as soon as the power switch had been pressed and half of the CPU Core had disintegrated!! Fantastic!!

The heatsink will buy you a few seconds but not too much more.


The biggest problem is that we still dont know at which point it is restarting.

Do you see BIOS information on the screen?
Does it beep?
Can you get into BIOS and leave it in the BIOS menus without it restarting?
Can you press PAUSE and halt the booting process without it restarting?
Can you get to the Menu screen (F8) and select SAFE MODE???

The answers to the question which have been posed will go a long way in determining whether it is a Hardware of Software fault.

steveeeee

CHR15 wrote: »

The biggest problem is that we still dont know at which point it is restarting.

Do you see BIOS information on the screen?
Does it beep?
Can you get into BIOS and leave it in the BIOS menus without it restarting?
Can you press PAUSE and halt the booting process without it restarting?
Can you get to the Menu screen (F8) and select SAFE MODE???

The answers to the question which have been posed will go a long way in determining whether it is a Hardware of Software fault.

As jackiegats said yesterday:

jackiegats wrote: »

It does start scrolling and the Windows symbol comes up before it cuts out & starts again