Windows 8 HP Pavillion powers up but then shuts down.

A friend asked me to have a look at his HP Pavillion p6-2302eam Series Tower PC running Windows 8 which basically refuses to complete a boot up. The device is two years old and out of warranty.

It powers up but then goes into Automatic Repair for a while followed by the Restart or Advanced option. Leaving it on that screen it runs ok, which to me seems to rule out heat sink problems. Selecting Restart it dies. Running the Advanced options I haven't tried Use a Device. In Troubleshooting carrying out a refresh sees the device run away on its diagnostic but so far it's got up to about 85 % then shut off. I'm tried a restore but that bombed out.

The owner told me that he plugged in a wireless mouse a few weeks ago. I've removed the usb dongle for that. No difference.

I'm wondering if there is any 'well known' issue with this particular PC?

 

Check out the different sections to troubleshoot.


HP Pavilion p6-2302ea Desktop PC Solve a problem

 

Right folks - an update.

There is an issue with the Seagate HD - seems that others have also had similar problems although with the earlier 11 drive not the 12 that is in this PC. Checked it out in an external caddy and every time it finds a problem that it has to fix on the OS partition. Recovery partition once.

Thanks @Whiskeyman for the pointer to:

HP Pavilion p6-2302ea Desktop PC Solve a problem

Thinking that I'd try a fresh recovery download I find that URL takes me to a W7 recovery not the W8 that's on this machine?

Checked PSU in another PC and it runs perfectly well.

Purchased a new WD Black drive and with caddy attached booted with new WD drive in place. Seemed to be recovering then after about 5 minutes the flipping thing just shut down.

My latest thought is first, yes there is a fault with the HD (though strangely it runs perfectly in the external after fixing itself) so it's the MB that's faulty?

 

A further update on this most frustrating of computers.

This morning I put an old blank HD in it and powered it up. It ran fine without an OS present for 20 minutes. I switched it off again. Replaced that old HD with the brand new Western Digital 1TB Black disk and proceeded to reinstall to the Factory Settings from the 4 DVDs that the owner had created.

The darned thing had nearly got to 100% on the 4th DVD (after the best part of an hour stable running) then it decided to shut down. The green light on the PSU remained on though.

This flipping machine is now driving me to distraction, anyone got any suggestions where the problem might lay please?

 

Thanks @Evan_Omo

The chap has already now paid for a new hard drive I'm reluctant to ask him to shell out for a new PSU as well. However, it might be I need to.

I just ran the PC up from cold and loaded all 4 restore to factory settings disks. It got to 100% after half an hour. Then popped disk 4 out and asked for a restart. Restarting it resulted in the flipping thing shutting down again straight away. I'm wondering if it's some sort of heat related issue. The green light on the PSU remains a steady bright green throughout.

I've spent many hours faffing about with this annoying piece of junk now and one things for sure I'd never buy one!

 

Thanks Evan. Fans are running fine and it's very clean inside the case. I'll give the BIOS thing a check tomorrow. Thanks for the advice.

 

Latest update - I swapped out the PSU with a Corsair CX430M. All connections seemed pretty logical and when comnpleted I switched the PC on. Straight away I noticed a difference and it sougt a restart then completed off the install on the new WD HD I'd installed and run up with the 4 recovery DVDs previously. I did have the old HD in an external cAaddy wondering if it would try and restore from the restore partition that was still present on that. Anyhow, on restart it sought Country etc and allowed set up using the owner's e-mail. Ran up to the desktop and connected to the wifi. everything looked good to go. Next I safely ejected the external caddy and coincidental with removing the usb connector the computer switched itself off.

I'm thinking this all seems to be time / heat related.

What a frustrating situation!

 

Thanks for the advice @Evan_Omo sadly it appears that the chipset driver must be the latest as there rather oddly doesn't seem to be a replacement on the HP website?

 

My apologies for the lack of an update. Hopefully over the next few days I'll get the time to have another look at the machine. In the meantime the chap has given up on the HP and bought a Mac!

 

I would take the heat sink off the processor clean both of any pad or old thermal paste and apply new thermal paste just to rule that out. Easy and quick job just to make sure that isn't causing a heat related shutdown. On some of my old home built PCs that I tried to push to the limits I would change paste a couple times a year. I never trusted pads that manufacturers used and would switch to thermal paste asap.

 

Thanks for that @Whiskeyman I have already done that.