PC boots up, shuts down, reboots, shuts down, reboots....

[Scott Summers]

I have no idea what is going on. I turn on the PC, log in, it starts
up and then about 5 seconds later it shuts down and reboots. I log in
again, it boots up stats and 5 seconds later it reboots and I am stuck
in this endless loop.

Do I have a virus?
Any suggestions?
How do I get into safe mode - will that help?

 

[Li'l Roberto]

to stop the shutdown loop :
start > run
enter the following text
shutdown -a

then take a look here

http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.sasser.worm.html


rgds
Li'l Roberto

 

[Guest]

It sounds a lot like the Sasser worm, except I'm not aware of a variant that
doesn't have a small popup window counting down to reboot.

 

[Steve N.]

It sounds a lot like the Sasser worm, except I'm not aware of a variant that
doesn't have a small popup window counting down to reboot.

The countdown window is not part of any virus, it is part of SVCHOST
process when it unexpectedly stops for whatever reason. You can go into
Task Manager, Processes and start killing off instances of SCVHOST and
the countdown window will pop up.

Steve

 

[Steve N.]

I have no idea what is going on. I turn on the PC, log in, it starts
up and then about 5 seconds later it shuts down and reboots. I log in
again, it boots up stats and 5 seconds later it reboots and I am stuck
in this endless loop.

Do I have a virus?
Any suggestions?
How do I get into safe mode - will that help?

Probably not a virus but a hardware issue. Remove peripherals except
mouse, keyboard and monitor, check internal connections, reseat cards
and RAM, test memory using Memtest86. It could also be a corrupt
hardware profile if there are multiple hardware profiles, such on a
docked laptop.

To get to Safe Mode tap F8 repeatedly as Windows starts booting up then
select it from the menu with arrow keys.

Steve