Computer turns itself off when loading win98

[ITlover]

My friends computer just suddenly turns off after a few sec. in the windows 98 loading screen. this happened after he uninstalls the norton anti virus.Its a hp comp and PII 400mhz. can any1 help?

[TwoRails]

If you didn't mention the uninstall, my first suspect would be a power supply problem. However, drivers / software can do this also. Has s/he tried booting into safe mode?

[GaryRouth]

Like Rails mentions, booting into Safe Mode will help you figure if the problem is hardware related. If it's hardware, the problem will continue the same. If the system boots OK in Safe Mode, and runs without any spontaneous shutdown, that points to a likely software problem.

If it's software, there are a couple of things to try.

There's a Microsoft Knowledge Base article for systems that boot to the shutdown screen - take a look and see if it seems to apply to your system. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q141898

My next guess is that the Norton Unistall didn't go well, and left too much behind. You can try to remedy this by visiting the Norton site for either 1) manual uninstall instructions for the Norton versions you need to remove, or 2) downloading an automatic removal tool available in their downloads pages. [You can also try RegClean 4.1 since it's a Win98 system - as long as MS Office 2000 isn't installed on that machine (there's an incompatibility), or use another tool such as RegCleaner, available at places like download.com in the Utilities section]

When you uninstall Norton, you usually have to remove many of it's shared files, and other related software (like LiveUpdate and such, which often requires a separate uninstall).

Also, you probably need to scan the disk as much as possible if you suspect at all that it is infected, or any repairs you undertake could go for nothing. You can scan it in an extra computer if you take the necessary precautions [ http://forum.pcmech.com/showthread.php?t=106182 ]

If it turns out that between the messy uninstalls and the havoc from infections have made life rough for a normally functioning Windows 98, you could try an over-the-top reinstall: http://forum.pcmech.com/showthread.php?t=70846 --- this tends to put things back in working order, but you need to be cautious that antivirus and firewall protection is active before going back onto the Internet for the rest of the Windows Updates = you'll need all available Security patches as soon as possible [timesaver: a Windows Security Update CD can get you current to Feb 2004, if anyone you know has one].

Best of luck
. . . Gary