Desk top problem

[Back2Dakota]

Have a Dell thats a few years old. I dont use it much (not at all now)But when I turn it on it starts windows and just shuts down. What are some of the thousands of things that could cause this? Its XP.

[Jim Jensen]

Well like you said in your post is could be one of a thousand things. How far into the boot does it get before it shuts down? Do you actually see the Windows XP screen or is the shutdown before that? If it doesn’t get to the Windows boot it is probably something with the PC and not the software. The two most likely culprits would be the power supply or the RAM. It could also be a cooling fan not running or the hard drive.

[upnorth]

Could also be a driver issue. If it gets as far as the starting windows screen try putting it into safe mode. You do that by pressings F8 as the starting Windows screen comes up, it will also give you some options choose safe mode with networking. This will allow you to do some troubleshooting.

Things to think about are any new hardware plugged in, any new software you installed, even if you installed any Windows updates. If none of that is pertinent, try going to windows update and getting all the updates, the critical, software and hardware.

You could also check the event logs, both the system event log and application event log. Look for errors or warnings it may give you a tip as to what is happening.