Computer not starting

F

Fading Phoenix

Gawd
Joined
Sep 14, 2006
Messages
602
My father has a Sony Vaio that's a couple years old. Just last night he claimed it had trouble shutting down. Now whenever he turns the computer on, it will start up and make it to the windows loading screen. But after the green loading bar goes across a couple times the screen just goes black. Could it just be a virus, or is it something else? And if it's a virus is there anyway we can get rid of it now?
 
The first thing I would do is open the case and make sure dust hasn't clogged up the CPU fan/heatsink and the case fans. Get a can of compressed air and blow out all the crud. A shop vac is also good if you can make it blow instead of vacuum. Just don't get too close to the components or you may dislodge something important.
Next I would see if the computer will enter "safe mode". This is usually done by pressing F8 during boot-up. If it makes it to safe mode then run a virus scan. Trend-Micro has a good on-line scan for free.
If a virus scan comes back clean, then I would obtain the HDD diagnostic program from the harddrive maker and run it. This is usually done using a floppy disk or CD with the program on it. Insert the disk and turn the computer on. The diagnostic should start itself.

If everything looks good to this point, you might need to restore Windows as it may be corrupted.

Good Luck,
CoachB
 
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