Restart Loop on mains power but not in safemode?

V

vortex

Hi, I've got a Toshiba Satellite laptop running XP I'm trying to repair for a friend.

It has an odd fault. It will start and run fine on the battery, and the battery will charge OK from the power lead, but if you try and start it with the power lead connected it gets stuck in a restart loop, restarting at the windows XP screen. If you put it into safemode it start fine on the power lead, but all the diagnostic startup options under msconfig also causes a restart loop. I've tested the power lead and it is OK, also I have tried a power lead from another laptop the same and the laptop still behaves the same.

Anyone got any ideas what the cause is? Thanks.
 
First: press F8 to get to advanced boot options and click on disable automatic restart on system failure, this should bread the restart loop and let a stop screen (blue screen ) come up.

need the info such as stop number and any files listed in error message.

would also help to have the model number of the toshiba laptop.
 
Thanks for your reply, Elizabeth.

It's a Toshiba Satallite Pro L300.

I tried what you suggested but even after disabling automatic restart on system failure, it still restarts most of the time. There is no blue screen. It gets to the windows XP logo screen and then either freezes with the logo distorted or more often than not it restarts.

I can't figure what it's not loading in Safe Mode that it is in the diagnostic startup with all the boxes unchecked, thought that was the same thing?
 
http://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c00041380

above is info on using pc doctor to help diagnos the issue, please read and from a working pc download the program and burn to a cd.

or if your pc boots from a usb you can use rufus to burn to a flash drive (must be and ISO)

rufus
https://rufus.akeo.ie/

https://www.pctechguide.com/how-to-perform-a-clean-boot-in-windows-xp
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntXinCnklrQ

above two sites are info on performing clean boot, it does not mean that it will boot into safe mode with a clean boot, it is to boot normally in a clean boot, safe mode means that the system is loading the barest minimum of drivers.

==================

Is there a setting in the BIOS that might prevent loading with an attached a/c power??
 
Tried the clean boot procedure, still just loops.

The PC-Doctor doesn't seem to be available form HP any more. I did eventually find it on a driver site. Wrote the CD booted from it and ran the basic scan, unfortunately it just stops straight away and says the scan was cancelled. No explanation, the log just says scan cancelled. Tried the advanced scan and got the same result.
 
https://www.google.com/#q=Toshiba+S...ng+XP,+reboot+loop+only+when+connected+to+a/c

not sure what could be the issue except that it must be a power setting that is interfering, since you can get into windows look at the power settings from the control panel , also there are evidently lots of toshiba's with boot problems, you might want to read through several at the above search page.

let me know if there are any settings in power that you cannot understand and I will try to find the definition. :)
 
Ah ha! That's the one.

Disabling one of the processors from the Device Manager while in Safe Mode seems to have solved it.

Thank you for all you help, Elizabeth :)
 
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