XP Machines Wont's Boot - Splash Screen then Black

mjmcdonagh1 · Jul 16, 2015

Hello,

I'm having a problem this morning with three separate Windows XP Machines (I know, I know, but they don't want to replace them yet). One of these machines was reported as an issue yesterday, the other two have only occurred this morning. When attempting to boot we get the XP Splash screen and then just eternal blackness (have left for about 30 mins at one point and nothing else happens). I CAN boot into safe mode (with networking) and from there I have run virus scans, checked the event viewer, and tried to reboot with diagnostic startup but nothing seems to have helped. I've also tried system restore, both to yesterday and last week but this hasn't made any difference unfortunately.

There are several other machines on this network, almost all of which are Windows XP, and none of them seem to be having this problem.

The machines are all running XP Pro SP3 (32-bit) and each run different hardware but for example one of the machines is:

HP Compaq dc5700 Microtower
Intel Pentium 2160 @1.80 GHz
150GB HDD
1GB RAM

As far as I know there haven't been any Windows updates, or updates to any of their applications recently (the end users don't have sufficient permissions to install applications themselves). They have a couple of applications specific to their business, which have never caused us any problems. Everything else installed is pretty standard:

Office 2003
AVG 2011
Google Chrome
Adobe Reader

That kind of thing.

I'm completely at a loss as to what could be causing this, any input would be much appreciated!

Thanks,

Matt

techgeek · Jul 16, 2015

I've seen this behavior on a domain for a company I worked at. WIndows XP too. The first time we thought there was something wrong and kept restarting, troubleshooting, etc. Then we left for lunch with it on. Came back and it was at the login when we go back to it over an hour later. It ran fine once it booted. I ran a bunch of diagnostics and nothing. It just took an extraordinarily long time to boot. After some time, I backed up his data and re-imaged it. Call our Help Desk, had them re-add it to the Domain, yadda, yadda. Then it boot up fine. A couple days later, same thing. Then a secretary at another location in my district had the same issue. Our Help Desk sent her a new computer. When I got hers, same thing as the first. Incidentally, the two computers were the same model. I re-imaged hers, and it booted up just fine. I turned it into a file server on our network, so it wasn't ever powered down. I don't know if it returned to the slow boot behavior or not.

I never did resolve what was causing it. At the time I was thinking it was some Windows Update that was installing and causing the behavior. Sorry that this might not help you. Just thought I'd relate what I've seen.

mjmcdonagh1 · Jul 21, 2015

Hi TechGeek!

Thanks for getting in touch. I left one of these machines on over night and unfortunately it still didn't boot. As a short term solution I've had the clients working in Safe Mode and they've agreed to replace the machines (and the rest of their XP machines!) so at least something good has come from this.

Though it's very frustrating to still not know what was causing the issue!!

Thanks again,

Matt

techgeek :

techgeek · Jul 21, 2015

Have you tried a Windows Repair?

hosehead · Aug 11, 2015

I have the EXACT same problem you describe Matt... on 5 different XP computers at a company. I'm pretty sure it was a windows update that caused it. Did you ever find any other solution vs safemode?

Thanks!
Eric

mjmcdonagh1 :

Hello,

I'm having a problem this morning with three separate Windows XP Machines (I know, I know, but they don't want to replace them yet). One of these machines was reported as an issue yesterday, the other two have only occurred this morning. When attempting to boot we get the XP Splash screen and then just eternal blackness (have left for about 30 mins at one point and nothing else happens). I CAN boot into safe mode (with networking) and from there I have run virus scans, checked the event viewer, and tried to reboot with diagnostic startup but nothing seems to have helped. I've also tried system restore, both to yesterday and last week but this hasn't made any difference unfortunately.

There are several other machines on this network, almost all of which are Windows XP, and none of them seem to be having this problem.

The machines are all running XP Pro SP3 (32-bit) and each run different hardware but for example one of the machines is:

HP Compaq dc5700 Microtower
Intel Pentium 2160 @1.80 GHz
150GB HDD
1GB RAM

As far as I know there haven't been any Windows updates, or updates to any of their applications recently (the end users don't have sufficient permissions to install applications themselves). They have a couple of applications specific to their business, which have never caused us any problems. Everything else installed is pretty standard:

Office 2003
AVG 2011
Google Chrome
Adobe Reader

That kind of thing.

I'm completely at a loss as to what could be causing this, any input would be much appreciated!

Thanks,

Matt

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