How To Fix a Computer That Won't Turn On

By Tim Fisher as written on pcsupport.about.com

It's an awful way to start a day... you press the power button on your computer and nothing happens. Few computer problems are more frustrating than when your computer won't boot.

There are many reasons why a computer won't turn on and often very few clues about what might be the problem. The only symptom is usually the simple fact that "nothing works" which isn't much to go on.

Add to this the fact that whatever is causing your computer not to start could be an expensive part of your PC to replace - like the motherboard or CPU.

Do not fear because all may not be lost! Here's what you need to do:
1. Read #1 below (it'll make you feel better).
2. Pick the best troubleshooting guide (#2 - #9) based on how your computer is acting or #10 if your PC stops at any point because of an error message.

Note: The "computer won't start" troubleshooting guides below apply to all PC devices. In other words, they'll help if your desktop or laptop won't turn on, or even if your tablet won't turn on. I'll call out any important differences along the way.

Also, all are applicable no matter what Windows operating system you have installed on your hard drive, including Windows 10, Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista, and Windows XP. Steps 1 through 5 even apply to other PC operating systems like Linux.

1. Don't Panic! Your Files are Probably OK

When faced with a computer that won't start most people tend to panic, worried that all the data on their PC is gone forever.

It's true that the most common reason a computer won't start is because a piece of hardware has failed or is causing a problem but that hardware isn't usually a hard drive, the part of your computer that stores all of your files.

In other words, your music, documents, emails, and videos are probably safe - just not accessible at the moment.

So take a deep breath and try to relax. There's a good chance you can figure out exactly why your computer won't start and then get it back up and running.

2. Computer Shows No Sign of Power

Try these steps if your computer will not turn on and is showing no sign at all of receiving power - no fans running and no lights on the laptop or tablet, nor on the front of the computer's case if you're using a desktop.

Important: You may or may not see a light on the back of your desktop PC depending on the kind of power supply you have and the exact cause of the problem. This goes for the power adapter you may be using for your tablet or laptop as well.

Note: Don't worry about the monitor yet, assuming you're using a desktop or an external display. If the computer is not turning on because of a power issue then the monitor certainly can't display anything from the computer. Your monitor light will likely be amber/yellow if your computer has stopped sending information to it.

3. Computer Powers On... and Then Off

Follow these steps if, when you turn your computer on, it promptly powers back off.

You'll probably hear the fans inside your computer turn on, see some or all of the lights on your computer turn on or flash, and then it will all stop.

You won't see anything on the screen and you may or may not hear beeps coming from the computer before it shuts off by itself.

Note: As in the previous scenario, don't worry about the state your external monitor is in, if you have one. You may have a monitor issue as well but it's not possible to troubleshoot it quite yet.

4. Computer Powers On But Nothing Happens

If your computer seems to be receiving power after turning it on but you don't see anything on the screen, try these troubleshooting steps.

In these situations, the power lights will stay on, you'll likely hear the fans inside your computer running (assuming it has any), and you may or may not hear one or more beeps coming from the computer.

This situation is probably the most common in my experience working with computers that won't start. Unfortunately it's also one of the most difficult to troubleshoot.

5. Computer Stops or Continuously Reboots During the POST

Use this guide when your computer powers on, shows at least something on the screen, but then stops, freezes, or reboots over and over again during the Power On Self Test (POST).

The POST on your computer may happen in the background, behind your computer maker's logo (as shown here with the Dell laptop), or you may actually see frozen test results or other messages on the screen.

Important: Don't use this troubleshooting guide if you encounter an issue during the loading of the operating system, which occurs after the Power On Self Test is complete. Troubleshooting Windows related reasons why your computer won't turn on begin with #6 below.

6. Windows Begins to Load But Stops or Reboots on a BSOD

If your computer begins to load Windows but then stops and displays a blue screen with information on it then try these steps. You may or may not see the Windows splash screen before the blue screen appears.

This kind of error is called a STOP error but is more commonly referred to as a Blue Screen of Death or a BSOD. Receiving a BSOD error is a common reason why a computer won't turn on.

Important: Choose this troubleshooting guide even if the BSOD flashes on screen and your computer restarts automatically without giving you time to read what it says.

7. Windows Begins to Load But Stops or Reboots Without an Error

Try these steps when your computer powers on, starts to load Windows, but then freezes, stops, or reboots over and over again without generating any kind of error message.

The stopping, freezing, or reboot loop may happen on the Windows splash screen (shown here) or even on a black screen, with or without a flashing cursor.

Important: If you suspect that the Power On Self Test is still going on and that Windows has not yet started to boot, a better troubleshooting guide for why your computer won't turn on might be #5 above. It's a fine line and sometimes hard to tell.

Note: If your computer won't start and you see a blue screen flash or remain on the screen, you're experiencing a Blue Screen of Death and should use troubleshooting guide #6 above.

8. Windows Repeatedly Returns to Startup Settings or ABO

Use this guide when nothing but the Startup Settings (Windows 8 - shown here) or Advanced Boot Options (Windows 7/Vista/XP) screen appears every time your restart your computer and none of the Windows startup options work.

In this situation, no matter which Safe Mode option you choose, your computer eventually stops, freezes, or restarts on its own, after which you find yourself right back at the Startup Settings or Advanced Boot Options menu.

This is a particularly annoying way in which your computer won't turn on because you're trying to use Windows' built-in ways to solve your problem but you're getting nowhere with them.

9. Windows Stops or Reboots On or After the Login Screen

Try this troubleshooting guide when your computer powers on, Windows shows the login screen, but then freezes, stops, or reboots here or anytime after.

The stopping, freezing, or reboot loop may happen on the Windows login screen, as Windows is logging you in (as shown here), or any time up to Windows fully loading.

10. Computer Doesn't Fully Start Because of an Error Message

If your computer turns on but then stops or freezes at any point, showing an error message of any kind, then use this troubleshooting guide.

Error messages are possible at any stage during your computer's boot process, including during the POST, at any time during the loading of Windows, all the way up to the Windows desktop appearing.

Note: The only exception to using this troubleshooting guide for an error message is if the error is a Blue Screen of Death. See #6 above for a better troubleshooting guide for BSOD issues.

 

How to Force-Quit a Program in Windows

By Tim Fisher as written on pcsupport.about.com

Ever try to close a program in Windows but tapping or clicking on that big X doesn't do the trick?

Sometimes you'll get lucky and Windows will tell you that a program isn't responding and give you some options to Close the program or End Now, or maybe even to Wait for the program to respond.

Other times all you get is a Not Responding message in the program's title bar and a full-screen gray-out, making it really clear that whatever program is going nowhere fast.

Worst of all, some programs that freeze or lock up do so in a way that even your operating system can't detect and inform you about, leaving you wondering if you have a problem with your mouse buttons or touchscreen.

Regardless of what program won't close, or what the specific situation is, there are several ways to "force quit" a program in Windows:

Try to Close the Program Using ALT+F4

The little known but very handy ALT+F4 keyboard shortcut performs the same, behind the scenes, program-closing magic that clicking or tapping that X in the top-right of a program window does.

Here's how to do it:
1. Bring the program you want to quit to the foreground by tapping or clicking on it.

Tip: If you're having trouble doing this, try ALT+TAB and progress through your open programs with the TAB key (keep ALT down) until you reach the program you want (then let go of both).

2. Press and hold one of the ALT keys.

3. While still holding the ALT key down, press F4 once.

4. Let go of both keys.

It's super important that you do #1. If a different program or app is selected, that's the program or app that will close.

If no program is selected, Windows itself will shut down, although you'll have a chance to cancel it before it happens (so don't skip trying the ALT+F4 trick for fear of shutting off your computer).

Because ALT+F4 is identical to using the X to close an open program, this method of force-quitting a program is only helpful if the program in question is working to some degree, and it won't work to close any other processes that this program "spawned" at any point since it started.

That said, knowing this force-quit method can be particularly helpful if the batteries in your wireless mouse have quit, your touchscreen or touchpad drivers are making your life really difficult right now, or some other mouse-like navigation isn't working as it should.

Still, ALT+F4 takes just a second to try and is much easier to pull off than the more complicated ideas below so I highly recommend you try it first, no matter what you think source of the problem might be.

Use Task Manager to Force the Program to Quit

Assuming ALT+F4 didn't do the trick, truly forcing an unresponsive program to quit - no matter what state the program is in - is best accomplished via Task Manager.

Here's how:
1. Open Task Manager using the CTRL+SHIFT+ESC keyboard shortcut.

Tip: If that doesn't work or you don't have access to your keyboard, right-click or tap-and-hold on the Desktop taskbar and choose Task Manager or Start Task Manager (depending on your version of Windows) from the pop-up menu that appears.

2. Next you want to find the program or app that you want to close and get Task Manager to direct you to the actual process that supports it.

This sounds a bit hard, but it's not. The exact details do differ depending on your version of Windows, though. See What Version of Windows Do I Have? if you're not sure.

Windows 10 & 8: Find the program you want to force close in the Processes tab, probably under the Apps heading. Once found, right-click or tap-and-hold on it and choose Go to details from the pop-up menu.

Windows 7, Vista, & XP: Find the program you're after in the Applications tab. Right-click on it and then click Go To Process from the menu that pops up.

Note: You may be tempted to simply End task directly from that pop-up menu but don't. While this might be perfectly fine for some programs, doing this "the long way" as I'm describing here is a much more effective way to force quit a program (more on this below).

3. Right-click or tap-and-hold on the highlighted item you see and choose End Process Tree.

Note: You should be in the Details tab if you're using Windows 10 or Windows 8, or the Processes tab if you're using Windows 7, Windows Vista, or Windows XP.

4. Click or tap the End process tree button in the warning that appears. In Windows 10, for example, this warning looks like this:
Do you want to end the process tree of [program file name]? If open programs or processes are associated with this process tree, they will close and you will lose any unsaved data. If you end a system process, it might result in system instability. Are you sure you want to continue?
This is a good thing - it means that not only will this individual program you want closed actually close, it means Windows will also end any processes that that program started, which are probably also hung up but much harder to track down yourself.

5. Close Task Manager.

That's it! The program should have closed immediately but it could take several seconds if there were lots of child processes connected to the frozen program or the program was using a lot of system memory.

See? Easy as pie... unless it didn't work or you can't get Task Manager to open. Here are a few more ideas if Task Manager didn't do the trick...

Confuse the Program! (Prompting Windows to Step In and Help)

That's probably not advice you've seen elsewhere, so let me explain.

In some cases, you can actually give a problematic program a little nudge off the cliff, so to speak, pushing it into a full-blown frozen state, sending a message to Windows that it should probably be terminated.

To do this, do as many "things" as you can think to do in program, even if they don't do anything because the program is crashing. For example, click on menu items over and over, drag items around, open and close fields - whatever you do in this program that you're hoping to force quit.

Assuming this works, you'll get a window with a [program name] is not responding heading, usually with options like Check for a solution and restart the program, Close the program, Wait for the program to respond, or End Now (in older versions of Windows).

Tap or click Close the program or End Now to do just that.

Execute the TASKKILL Command to... Kill the Task!

I have one last trick to force quit a program but it's an advanced one. A particular command in Windows, called taskkill, does just that - it kills the task you specify, completely from the command line.

This trick is great in one of those hopefully-rare situations where some kind of malware has prevented your computer from working normally, you still have access to Command Prompt, and you know the filename of the program you want to "kill."

Here's how to do it:

1. Open Command Prompt. No need for it to be elevated and any way you get it open is fine.

A common method to open Command Prompt in all versions of Windows, even in Safe Mode, is via Run: open it with the WIN+R keyboard shortcut and then execute cmd.

2. Execute the taskkill command like this:
taskkill /im filename.exe /t
...replacing filename.exe with whatever filename the program you want to close is using. The /t option makes sure any child processes are closed as well.

If in the very rare situation that you don't know the filename, but do know the PID (process ID), you can execute taskkill like this instead:
taskkill /pid processid /t
...replacing, of course, processid with the actual PID of the program you want to force quit. A running program's PID is most easily found in Task Manager.

3. The program or app that you force-quit via taskkill should end immediately and you should see one of these responses in Command Prompt:
SUCCESS: Sent termination signal to process with PID [pid number], child of PID [pid number]. SUCCESS: The process with PID [pid number] child of PID [pid number] has been terminated.
Tip: If you get an ERROR response that says that a process was not found, check that the filename or PID you used with the taskkill command was entered correctly.

Note: The first PID listed in the response is the PID for the program you're closing and the second is usually for explorer.exe, the program that runs the Desktop, Start Menu, and other major user interface elements in Windows.

If even taskkill doesn't work, you're left with having to restart your computer, essentially a force-quit for every program running... including Windows itself, unfortunately.

How to Force-Quit Running Programs on non-Windows Machines

Software programs and apps sometimes stop responding and won't close on Apple, Linux, and other operating systems and devices, too. It's certainly not a problem exclusive to Windows machines.

On a Mac, force quitting is best done from the Doc or via the Force Quit option from the Apple menu. See How to Use the Force Quit to Terminate a Wayward Mac Application for details.

In Linux, the xkill command is one really easy way to force quit a program. Open a terminal window, type it, and then click the open program to kill it. More on this in Gary Newell's Linux Terminal Commands That Will Rock Your World.

In ChromeOS, open Task Manager using SHIFT+ESC and then select the program you want to terminate, followed by the End process button.

To force quit an app on iPad & iPhone devices, double-press the Home button, find the app you want to close, and then swipe it up, as if you're tossing it right off the device.

Android devices have a similar process - tap the square multitasking button, find the app that's not responding, and then toss it off the screen... left or right.

I hope these were helpful tips, especially for Windows! Have any tips of your own for killing misbehaving programs? Let me know and I'd be happy to add them.