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I have a Compaq Presario 2700 laptop that shuts down approximately 10 seconds after intial boot screen appears. It does this regardless of boot source (HDD, CD, Floppy) or mode (Safe Mode, Normal Windows or Restarting from within Windows). I am able to access the BIOS by hitting F10 on startup and if I do this and restore BIOS defaults each time, the computer will startup normally.

Initially I thought this might be a CMOS battery problem but when I log back on the date and time are still correct. I've also tried flashing a new BIOS but no help. I've run diagnostics on the HDD and the RAM with no errors found.

Does anyone know what could cause this and if not, at least know why a computer would boot differently after going into the BIOS Setup.

Or maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree with the BIOS and the prblem lies elswhere?

Hi there, welcome to PCHF - quick survey - how did you locate PCHF?

Ok, what operating system are you using?

Found your site through Yahoo.

The laptop is a Presario 2700US running Windows XP (home). Other info:

Pentium 3, 256MB RAM. Computer is about four years old (hence the battery suspicion) and has worked great up until a couple weeks ago.

Let's look at the registry first can you do this.

As your PC starts up, start slowly tapping the F8 key until you get a menu: in the menu select "Last known good configuration" and let Windows start on that basis.

Sorry, I didn't realize we'd be doing this realtime.

I had to go into BIOS first and do the procedure I mentioned above or else it would have shut down on me again...

OK, Last known good configuration is loaded...

...and has the laptop stayed on?

Yes, because I went through the BIOS screen first