pc randomly crashing on bootup

[lagigolo]

I have a pc which randomly crashes on boot up and always when coming out of sleep mode.

have tried the obvious things, what i am now thinking is possible hard drive.

As a quick test is there a bootable small operating system i could put on a usb and try to boot that several times to confirm?

[evilsatan]

I had a similar issue ages ago which caused me a lot of headaches and ended up being the RAM at fault.

What does it do when it crashes? Is there a blue screen or does it just power off as if the cord had been pulled? Download and install WhoCrashed to examine any minidumps to see if it indicates a driver being at fault and post any error messages here.

[DejaVu]

Can try booting Ubuntu Live, but I doubt that'll help pin point the issue, unless you run a RAM test from it. Random crashes and a general flakey system is, as evilsatan stated, usually RAM at fault.

I have had crashes caused by HDD's but usually its more obvious as the fault is more audible with clicking.

[lagigolo]

It used to reboot but changed it so it now does blue screen. The faults vary all the time, sometimes gets stuck on black bios screen.

Will look at some ram swapping from another macine then.

[evilsatan]

Need to see the error codes really, getting stuck at bios can be a sign of no boot device which would be HDD. You can try running memtest 86+ from bootcd but I have has that pass bad ram before.

[lagigolo]

Will try to get some error codes for you. Unfortunately the spare ram i thought i had doesn't fit. So will have to scrap that idea.

Another thing that happens which might point people in the right direction. It won't even boot for about 15-20mins when its first turned on. Its as though its heating up. Then it will crash on the dmi bit a few times. Then it goes a bit further and will crash on windows 7 logo coming together. Then it boots up and normally crashes straight away, then next time its fine and will stay fine as long as it doesn't go to sleep. This is the standard of me booting up now, its like clockwork.

[evilsatan]

Sounds like a hard drive there, strange how it's crashes are fairly consistently like that. Could even be capacitors on the mobo swollen or leaking.

[neilb]

Another thing that happens which might point people in the right direction. It won't even boot for about 15-20mins when its first turned on. Its as though its heating up.

Do you have any usb drives etc plugged in? try unplugging them when it sticks on booting if you do.

[Basset]

I had a similar issue ages ago which caused me a lot of headaches and ended up being the RAM at fault.

What does it do when it crashes? Is there a blue screen or does it just power off as if the cord had been pulled? Download and install WhoCrashed to examine any minidumps to see if it indicates a driver being at fault and post any error messages here.

Same here... had one PC that kept freezing within the first few minutes of boot. Kept starting it with different chips in different slots and found the combination that worked.

[lagigolo]

I knew i shouldn't have read this tonight. Thought i had it fixed i unplugged both the hard drive, reset cmos and unplugged cd drive. Seemed to boot bios screen regularly but it was a red herring.

Currently putting a ssd in it, not that i think its that now.

I have tried removing the graphics card, that does the same. Swapped ram slots. Although i might try one at a time.

As its booted now, will load the whocrashed software.

[GedR]

If all else fails, try a different Power Supply. When failing they can cause this type of fault.

[brianbri]

If all else fails, try a different Power Supply. When failing they can cause this type of fault.

I had the same sort of problem turned out it was my PSU. Used to get through post and into boot but crash at different times.

[german dude]

same as me,
psu was wrecked.
a new one and everything worked out fine!