BleepingComputer.com: Problems with booting up

My wife has been having a problem with her Dell Inspiron 530 which we purchased in June 2009. We are running Win XP Pro.

Basically, when the computer is started up after a normal shut down, the boot hangs on the Dell Inspiron page (which shows F2 for Setup, F12 boot options). It never advances to the Windows welcome page. The computer does not respond when F2 or F12 is pressed.

Therefore, we have to turn off the computer by holding down the power button. After this is done, the next restart works normally and the computer functions fine...until Windows is shut down and we try to turn on the computer again.

Interestingly, when in Windows and "Restart" is chosen rather than "Shut Down", the computer is able to restart without hanging.

I'm not sure how long this has been going on as my wife didn't let me know as soon as it started happening, so I would have no idea what (if any) software that has been loaded on is causing this problem.

Thanks in advance for your help.

That Dell Inspiron Page is a cover sheet of what your BIOS is doing. I have seen hangups like this when it is checking system functions. How long have you let the Dell screen sit when it just hangs?

No error messages of any sort?

You've done several scans for malware items?

Nothing in Event Viewer that screams for attention?

How To Use Event Viewer - http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/topic40108.html

This system appears to be a couple of years old...did you purchase it new?

Did you do a clean install of XP when purchased?

Wild guess would be a potential power supply problem....corrupt files, any number of things if the system was not purchased new.

Louis