[Tamalak]

My Dell laptop, for the past couple weeks, does not want to start. About 90% of the time when I press the on button, all that happens is a blinking Capslock/downlock symbols right above the keyboard, and a lit numlock. After about 20-30 seconds of this, there is a small "beep" and it turns off again. Nothing is on the screen other than this. It takes me about 10 minutes of trying to get my laptop to start, now!

Occasionally once it does start, it freezes on the windows loading screen, or shortly after windows starts, and I have to shut it off again.

Also occasionally once it starts, it tells me that windows did not start properly and if I want to start in safe mode, or use last "working" configuration. I always ask it to use last working configuration, and it starts.

Once Windows has been active for about 2 minutes, it never gives any further problems (until it shuts down again!)

Any ideas what's causing this?

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I see that no one has addressed this so I'll try to help here. First, this may be a simple easy to fix problem or it may be serious, so if I was in your position the first thing I would do is back up all my files, even if you have to buy an external hard drive to do it.

The second thing I would do is go into the Event Logs and see what kind of errors you have. That will probably give you a good idea of what is going wrong.

One reason why you haven't gotten much help yet is that there is very little real information in your post.

[Tyger]

I see that no one has addressed this so I'll try to help here. First, this may be a simple easy to fix problem or it may be serious, so if I was in your position the first thing I would do is back up all my files, even if you have to buy an external hard drive to do it.

The second thing I would do is go into the Event Logs and see what kind of errors you have. That will probably give you a good idea of what is going wrong.

One reason why you haven't gotten much help yet is that there is very little real information in your post.

[Tamalak]

I see that no one has addressed this so I'll try to help here. First, this may be a simple easy to fix problem or it may be serious, so if I was in your position the first thing I would do is back up all my files, even if you have to buy an external hard drive to do it.

The second thing I would do is go into the Event Logs and see what kind of errors you have. That will probably give you a good idea of what is going wrong.

One reason why you haven't gotten much help yet is that there is very little real information in your post.

Thank you for the reply

I went to Administrative Tools -> Event Viewer -> System (is that right?), however there don't seem to be any errors related to my problem at all (or even warnings or normal events). I would expect things are only logged to the Event Viewer after Windows has started up? It seems to be internal to the operating system..

Sorry if there's too little information in my post. I tried to describe all the symptoms and events that I could remember. I don't know what else to put

[Tamalak]

Help, help!

This is still an issue. It seems to take the same number of times to start my comp every time (about 10) so about 5 minutes.

If you fix this I will donate again!

[1101doc]

Sometimes the best thing to do is to take it to the shop. I'm actually suspecting a "bad' power button, a poor connection somewhere on the board, a failing hard drive, or power supply.

I recommend that you do not use one of the major chains for this. Find a well established and reputable computer shop and pay them for a diagnosis. Explain the problem in detail, and take the whole system, power supply and all.

Once they have examined the computer and given their opinion, you can make an informed decision about what to do. If simple, fix it. If too big, perhaps it's time for a new machine?