Windows Vista forum: Windows Vista booting problem

Hi Bob,

Thanks for responding.

Yes I did clean it with canned air, ( inside and out, although it was really clean and free from dust etc anyway).
This laptop belongs to my daughter, and I half expected the cooling fan to be furred up, but no, it was clean. I just phoned her and she told me that she hasn't used the laptop in ages because of the fault, but in no way had it been used in dirty environments. It has always been kept in a laptop bag too.

ooveevoo

I have to work with only what's presented here and if the screen comes on and the boot fails then we look at the HDD swap first. It's the cheapest part compared to what else it can be (motherboard.)

But again, details matter. It would matter if some USB stick or device was plugged in but I would be guessing.
Bob

Hi again Bob,

When I press the start button, it makes the sound as though it's about to boot, but doesn't and the screen stays "totally black", however, if I persist in trying to start it, eventually it will, and it will work all day and as long as I want it too, but sometimes it can take an hour of trying before it will boot.
There are no USB sticks plugged in and no CDs/DVDs in the machine either.

Power down. Remove AC, remove battery, press, hold power button for 60 seconds, release, slip battery in, apply AC, re-test.

Good evening Bob,

After numerous tries, I again got this laptop running.
As you suggested I connected an external monitor and that worked OK (Fn + F5 did the trick), however the intermittent and frustrating booting persists.

I've also tried powering down, removing the battery and AC, then holding down the start button for the 60 seconds, I then released the start button, returned the battery and AC, and then again pressed the start button, it wouldn't boot..

I left the laptop for 18 hours and had another go, and after about 8/9 tries, it booted.

I then opened Device Manager and one by one I double clicked on every item , and the computer confirmed that every device was working correctly.

I've been using the laptop all day and it worked perfectly, but I know that as soon as I switch the darn thing off, it wont want to boot again.

I am beginning to think that the problem might well be a crap connection/dry joint somewhere.

I don't know if you have any other ideas Bob, but thank you for your time and courtesy, you are a gentleman sir.

I'm unsure where that idea comes from.

OK. On to the next time. As an engineer there's a joke about something and here's the one line joke. Ready?
"Why do they call them connectors?"

When I see a cranky hard to boot laptop, we first have to define what that means. Ready?
"It turns on but does not boot."

For that we'll pull the battery out and do that reset but leave the battery out. WHY!!
"And old battery can drag the power supply down and cause hard booting issues."

Get ready to hear this.
"I don't want to buy a battery." (tell them to leave it out?)

OK, back to connections and one more thing. Ready?
"Disassemble, unplug and plug all connections and then replace the CMOS BATTERY as it's cheap and we're inside."

Hope this helps,
Bob