Vista - Vista 64-bit dies during startup

I've been having major troubles getting my Vista 64-bit box to start up reliably and I finally decided to ask for some help.

Symptoms:

During startup my Vista 64-bit machine unexpectedly "powers off" and the power button, reset button, and power switch stop working until I unplug the power cable on the back and plug it back in.

Workaround:

If I boot into safe mode first, I can usually reboot back into Windows normally.

Triggers:

This doesn't happen every time, although usually after Windows Update forces me to reboot it will happen. There was a power outage today and it took several reboots and unplugging the computer to get it to boot again afterwards.

Other issues:

Lately when I try to put Vista to sleep, it doesn't always go into low power mode and seems to just leave everything on. Sometimes it never sleeps and goes back to the login screen immediately.

When the system dies, it usually makes this high-pitched whining noise just beforehand that I think may be the CPU - this noise happens on every boot, whether successful or not, but might be a clue about what triggers the power-off.

Question:

Does anyone have any idea what could be causing this, and what might be the solution?

Thanks!

Hi dobesv,

Sounds like a bad power supply maybe. You might have someone look at it and test it. As to the noise,might be really dirty inside your tower try cleaning everything out. The fans may be too dirty and you might have overheating issues.

As to your power options, take a look at this tutorial.

Power Options and Sleep Mode Problems

Thanks for the link to the sleep problems, I'll give that a try. I think I might have turned on Media Sharing, which might be the culprit here. I'll find out later when my day is done.

I'll try and look into the power issues ... I had taken this to the shop after I first had the problem and he was unable to repro the problems there :-(.

Yep, no problem, let us know how it goes.

It could be over voltage or over current cutoff from a too small power supply.

Actually that's good thing to check into, this is the power supply/case I have:

ANTEC NEW SOLUTION SERIES NSK3480 MATX MINITOWER 380W 2 1 (1) USB2.0 ROHS BK SIL

which needs to power:

ASUS M3A78-EMH HDMI SOCKET AM2+ AMD 780G SB700 DDR2 1066 PCI EXPRESSX16 10 sku#: 70184(M3A78-EMH HDMI)
AMD PHENOM 9850 Quad-Core 2.5GHz 125W L2-2MB L3-2MB Socket AM2+ Black Edition sku#: 70030(D985ZXAGHBOX)

Did you ever figure out what the issue was. I'm having a very similar problem.

No, not yet - I was planning to go buy a new power supply and see if that makes a difference but I haven't gotten around to it yet. What power supply do you have?