XP Loading Failure... Help!

[RockTheCazbah87]

Right. My XP (about 5, 6 years old) will just randomly either restart, or the screen will go a dark blue colour, just completely blank and I can't figure out a way to get it back to normal. I know it's not the normal BSOD, because no text comes up.

And tonight, I'll turn it on and it just stays on this dark blue screen, it just won't load. Has anyone got any tips?

 

[Mulholland]

Sounds serious. Have you tried booting in safe mode? Random restarts like that can sometimes point to a hardware problem. When was the last time you cleaned the dust out your PC? If it's an OS problem it might need a system restore or a repair with the windows CD.

 

[RockTheCazbah87]

I can't actually remember cleaning it on the inside...

Tomorrow I'll whip some cleaning stuff out, give it a good scrub, and/or I'll do a system restore. Thanks for the help!

 

[Mulholland]

Make sure you read up on how to properly clean a computer before you do it.

 

[Genocidicbunny]

Scrubbing a computer is not a good idea ( I have seen a computer that someone literally tried to wash out). Just take a can of compressed air and a vacuum, and a stiff brush if you have one. Vacuum out as much of the dust as you can. Then blow out any that stuck on after the vacuuming. Make sure to hold down the fans and not let them spin while either vacuuming of blowing them out, as overspin can damage them, and make them very noisy. Lastly, if you have any heatsinks, give them a good brushing out, unless the compressed air got all of the dust. If you can, do this outside, otherwise all of the dust you blew out will come right back in when you boot your computer up again.