Page 1 of PC won`t boot up first time....

Parents PC.... XP Pro SP2 - all upto date..
They told me it won`t turn on first time but when I`m there it`s always been on a while - and restarts OK. So I told them to leave it off until I got there..
Sure enough, on Saturday I went there and turned it on. It went to the black `not properly shutdown` screen which I thought maybe was because it wasn`t shutdown properly.. So, rebooted/selected Last Known Good.. and this got to the blue ID screen. But selecting the name brings up `Loading personal settings` screen but it just stays there. Another reboot and this time it goes in. They say it does this everyday without fail - and I just can`t get my hear around how it `knows`... Once it`s on you can switch it off and it will come back on fine. But always for the `cold start` it won`t come on. Any ideas? I was thinking cmos battery but it`s not losing any settings. :/

Ste

hmmm.

Might be the Memory. Have a dekko inside and see if any of the chips are loose. Might be a good idea to pull them out completely and reseat them in their slots.

Other than that, I can only think it`s a component that likes to be warm before it functions properly.

I`d pull the battery and make sure it`s still delivering the proper voltage, but as you say, no settings are dropped so it seems unlikely to be that.


Just craptacular....