Dear Stephen Lloyd,
Not all that strange, actually. As was mentioned in some of the
other posts, heat-related mechanical problems are the worst
culprit. The expansion cards or socketed chips inside can work
themselves loose with the changes in temperature inside the case,
and some connection between components may only get made
when the interior is warm enough.
As others did, I recommend reseating all the expansion cards, and
checking the seating of the chips. Anyone who's worked inside a
PC can do this in about twenty minutes.
However, under certain conditions, failing semiconductors can also
cause this problem. It may be that some part of the computer may
need to be replaced. This occurs mostly with aging computers.
More commonly, this manifests as a problem in which the
computer restarts after having been on for an hour or two, the
opposite problem of what you report; however, I have seen it work
both ways. My experience with this is that it's most commonly the
power supply, or the memory, that has heat-related problems.
Power supplies are about $75 to replace, including labor. Memory
could be anywhere from $50 to $100 including labor, depending on
how much memory you have in your computer.
Most likely, though, something is loose, and reseating everything
will fix the problem.
Hope this helps,
Anthony J. Albert
On 30 Sep 99, at 8:48, Stephen Lloyd wrote:
>This is a really strange problem, and please, no jokes about tired
>computers etc, those messages just use up bandwidth and aren't helpfull to
>anybody.
>Over night when I go to bed I keep my computer switched off. When I wake
>up the next morning I switch my computer on, and windows95 starts to load,
>but then suddenly it stops, and then the system reboots itself, then
>windows95 enters safe mode.
>I have found that the only way to stop this is to boot the computer
>straight in to dos mode, and leave it switched on for an hour or two. I'll
>then switch it off, wait for a few seconds and then switch it on again.
>Surprise surprise, the computer loads up windows95 with no trouble. Can
>anybody tell me why this would be happening?
>it's as if my computer has to warm up first before windows is able to run.
>Please are you able to help me with this baffling problem?
>
==============================================================
Anthony J. Albert [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Systems and Software Support Specialist Postmaster
Computer Services - University of Maine, Presque Isle
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