Occasional boot loop

I recently have had occasional issues with the computer shutting down out of nowhere and then going into a boot loop. Goes to the Emachine (I know I know) logo, then BEEP, reboot, Emachine logo....I can get into the bios setup and have played around and reset to defaults and it doesn't change anything. I can't get into safe mode either. It is a Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit, 4 GB RAM. All windows updates gotten and updates virus protection. I orginally thought it was a virus issue, but posted in that forum with scans and turned out to be clean. What can I provide to help diagnose what the problem may be. Thanks for any help you can provide.

 

hunters...

Could you please post the model of your Emachines PC and whether it is a desktop or laptop? Think it might help find out what the beep means.

Is this a single short beep, like BEEEP or a single long beep, like B-E-E-E-E-E-P?

I have heard of this being an overheating issue and that using a can of pressurized air to clean the inside of the PC (including fans) can resolve the problem sometimes...

 

Thanks for your replies. To clarify, the computer restarts on its own and gets into the boot loop. Seems to be completely random. I'll disable the auto restart feature. It has come back( when it does come back) and gives me a window like "windows has recovered from an improper shutdown" would you like to search for a solution? I say yes and it never finds anything. Does it store a code somewhere that would be helpful? I'll get the model number for you. It is just a short beep that is normal during normal startup.

 

Emachine EL1852 Desktop

 

...And I just checked plodr, and automatically restart wasn't checked.

 

I'm sure plodr will have some excellent ideas for you, but, if you haven't cleaned out the inside of the PC in awhile, it would be a good idea to get some pressurized air and have some fun...

I used to have this same problem on a similar system (not brand but specs) that was caused by the driver for a television tuner. Drivers are so tricky, and I don't like updating them unless I have to as recommended by many of the best here at MG. It is nice that the newer driver updater programs give a user the ability to back up drivers before making changes, though.

I guess I personally would start by checking with your manufacturer to make sure you have the latest recommended chipset driver. Then I think I would check BIOS next to make sure it's up to date.

If you have any recent files in the C:\Windows\Minidump folder, it would help to see them. You can upload them by highlighting the ones you want to post and then copying them into a zip folder. You can attach a zip folder to posts using the attach feature of the advanced reply interface...

 

I like fruit loops but not boot loops!

 

That one took me a minute :-D My first thought was, wow, this person is batsh** crazy.

Anyway, hunters, I think it would be useful for you to download the BlueScreenView app from the following link:

http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/bluescreenview.html

When you run it, it will give you the BSOD error codes for your most recent crashes, which you can then post here. I think that's a little easier than hunting down the dumps and then sifting through the typically large contents for the codes.

 

Thanks again for your responses. I ran BlueScreenView app and unfortunately it found no recent bsod codes. Is it possible that me running ccleaner deleted them all?

 

Hello, thanks again. I'm thinking that bluescreenview didn't find anything because of ccleaner deleting the logs perhaps? I've tested the RAM and hdd and found no errors. I was thinking that Windows was corrupted or something.

 

CCleaner does give the user the option of deleting all memory dumps. If you have that item checked and used CCleaner since the time of your last BSOD then, yes, CCleaner is almost certainly the cause for you having no error codes displayed in BlueScreenView. Can you reproduce the BSOD? If so, you should do it so we can recover some error codes.

As for the possibility of having a corrupted installation.... doesn't sound like it. Sounds more like a hardware problem (specifically your PSU). In any case you can check your system for corrupted files and attempt to fix them by typing the following in the Windows RUN box:

sfc /scannow

Press Enter.

 

Memory dumps are checked by default by ccleaner, so I'm sure it got rid of them. As much as I've tried to recreate the error, I haven't been able to...Going to clean out the case today.

 

Yea, it's best to exempt all types of logged files from the cleaning process. They are indispensable in situations such as this. In any case, I don't think you've tried to fix files using System Files Checker (SFC).

Click on Start Button >> Run to open a RUN box.
Type the following into the Run box:
sfc /scannow
Note that there is a space between "sfc" and "/scannow"
Hit Enter
It will take 5 - 10 minutes to check the state of crucial Windows files for errors and repair/replace any that it finds.
When it finishes, you'll find the SFC log file in the following directory:
%WinDir%\Logs\CBS\CBS.log
where %WinDir% is your Windows installation directory (typically C:\Windows\)
Attach that log to your next post in this thread.

 

running sfc /scannow from the run box quickly opened a small window and disappeared doing nothing that I could see. I opened an elevated command prompt and ran it. After the verification phase reached 100% it returned "Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations." The log it produced is 1.37 MB and therefore too large for me to attach. Thoughts?

 

Since the scan document came up negative, there's no reason to post it anyway. But that's good, we ruled out one more thing.

 

I read the thread from the beginning and it seems that your original problem (unexpected shutdowns coupled with boot loops) has resolved itself for the time being Is this true? If so, then what is the current nature of your problem? It's impossible to track down the cause of BSOD errors without the BSOD dumps that contain the error codes required for diagnosis. In other words, would you please restate the nature of your problem, as it now stands.

 

Well, thanks again for your help all. I can't reproduce the BSOD or reboot loop I was stuck in. Next time it happens, I'll make sure Ccleaner doesn't delete the logs and repost.