A friend asked me to look at his daughters computer that wouldn't turn on. There was an error saying Windows restarted unexpectedly. I looked online and found the fix. I pressed Shift-F10, got into regedit and changed HKLM/System/Setup/ChildCompletion to 3.
What would case this? I'm thinking somebody shut the computer off during an update or there was a power outage.
Looking online, the only cause for this error that requires this fix seems to be a failure while running Sysprep, something you friend or his daughter shouldn't really be doing. Maybe someone suggested it may be 'a good thing to try' and they are too ashamed to admit it?
Sysprep win7 install error Solved - Windows 7 Help Forums
TechNet: What is Sysprep?
He said that it was working fine one day and they went to use the computer and it wouldn't turn on.
This is the same computer that I fixed late last year that wouldn't do anything. I found that the CPU wasn't seated properly and had three bent pins.
If anything happens again I'll be sure to ask exactly what they did. I don't want to accuse them of anything. I'm not sure what happened with the CPU the last time. My friend called me up and said it wouldn't boot (it was his computer at the time). I walked him through some stuff to try. I'm thinking he must have knocked the CPU loose while reseating the memory or unplugging internal USB devices.
Before I give the computer back, should I run some stress tests or anything (maybe make a system image)?
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Thought so, looks like they`re calling on your good nature and not telling you the whole story.
