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mshaneperkins
Contributor
Message 1 of 7

Computer won't restart

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I ran Full Scan and checked the auto shutoff when complete. Now it won't restart. The power light blinks 3 times but that's it. Any suggestions?

1 Solution

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Hayton
Reliable Contributor
Reliable Contributor
Message 2 of 7

Re: Computer won't restart

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This is low-level stuff. It's either a hardware fault or a BIOS problem. If the power lights are blinking you need to look behind, where all the cables plug in, and see if the #LEDs at the back are showing an unusual combination or colour, or are themselves blinking when you try to reboot, and make a note of exactly what they're doing. Also listen out for any beeping associated with the lights flashing.

Then you have to look in the maunufacturer's documentation to see what these flashing lights, LED configurations and beeping mean. I had to go this route when there was a problem with one of the memory chips. Keep your fingers crossed it's nothing to do with the motherboard or any of the major components : at least memory chips are easy to replace.

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6 Replies
Hayton
Reliable Contributor
Reliable Contributor
Message 2 of 7

Re: Computer won't restart

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This is low-level stuff. It's either a hardware fault or a BIOS problem. If the power lights are blinking you need to look behind, where all the cables plug in, and see if the #LEDs at the back are showing an unusual combination or colour, or are themselves blinking when you try to reboot, and make a note of exactly what they're doing. Also listen out for any beeping associated with the lights flashing.

Then you have to look in the maunufacturer's documentation to see what these flashing lights, LED configurations and beeping mean. I had to go this route when there was a problem with one of the memory chips. Keep your fingers crossed it's nothing to do with the motherboard or any of the major components : at least memory chips are easy to replace.

exbrit
MVP
MVP
Message 3 of 7

Re: Computer won't restart

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---
--I think VirusScan's auto-shutoff puts the machine in a "Sleep" mode.  I've found sometimes my machine wont recover from that mode.  I then have to power completely off and do a hard restart.

Of course results will vary from machine to machine.

---
Peter
Toronto, Canada
---

 

Hayton
Reliable Contributor
Reliable Contributor
Message 4 of 7

Re: Computer won't restart

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I know this is marked as Solved but I keep getting this little niggling thought that says, what if the PC has got an AMD processor? In which case maybe it's been bricked by one of Microsoft's recent buggy patches for Spectre/Meltdown?

If that were the case I'd have to pass this over to Woody Leonhard, undoing that damage would be out of my league.

exbrit
MVP
MVP
Message 5 of 7

Re: Computer won't restart

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That's very unlikely but then the OP would have to state that.   Those updates wouldn't have installed on any machine that didn't have a specific registry key indicating the machine had been updated by the maker or whomever first.

Of course there are always those who blindly install updates without paying attention to warnings or cautionary advice on the web.

Hayton
Reliable Contributor
Reliable Contributor
Message 6 of 7

Re: Computer won't restart

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Those updates would only install if a registry key had been set, but that key would have been set by McAfee and no-one else.

And you're probably right that the OP would have mentioned the Blue Screen that those patches triggered. But as for "blindly install updates"? You get a blanket panic about some terrible failing, and good ol' trusty Microsoft steps and says its got the whole thing sorted. Whether those updates were pushed out or had to be manually downloaded, they should have been safe to install. Not everyone follows insiders like Woody to monitor for bugs and glitches, so major errors like those bad patches would come as a surprise and users might not have a clue what was going on.
exbrit
MVP
MVP
Message 7 of 7

Re: Computer won't restart

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---

--Agreed.

On my Win 7 it was optional update, but as for Win 10, I have different settings across 3 of them and one got the update without me saying anything, the others I gave it permission to install.

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