Expert: Saed Shawwa - 10/28/2009

Question
When i log in to my user account on windows vista it shuts down after about 2-5 minutes of me being logged in. It then reboots and asks about going in to safe modes but will work fine in them.
It is only when i am in my user account normally (not in safe mode) that i have the problem. It is the only account on the Laptop.
Any ideas?

Answer
Hello S how are you doing
sorry for the delay

well it could be a problem with some startup programs that runs during the login or it could be a hardware driver , usually its the vga driver

so this is what you need to try to do

login into safe mode , by rebooting your machine and then keep pressing F8 until the vista boot menu shows up , choose safe mode from that menu
login to your account and then click on start button and type msconfig and press enter
windows configuration utility will show up , goto startup tab and uncheck all the boxes in there and click apply then reboot , try to login normally and see if your system reboots.

if it did not reboot , then one of the times in the list is causing the system to reboot so you need to go back to msconfig and enabled them one by one and reboot every time to see which one is causing the system to reboot.

now the other thing which is could be the anti virus , while you are in safe mode try uninstalling it by going to control panel then going to programs and features , locate your av vendor in the list and uninstall it and reboot and see if you can login normally without a problem

the last thing to try if non of the above worked is by uninstalling your vga driver , while you are in safe mode goto control panel and then programs and features and uninstall your vga driver it depends on your vendor but it could be one of these " Intel GMA graphics accelerator , or Nividia , or ATI graphics adapter and reboot your machine when you uninstall it and see if you can login normally without an error then you are using an outdated driver and it need to be update
i can help you to locate the updated driver if you send me the laptop/machine model # and your vga manufacturer name.

if you need more help feel free to contact me back anytime
take care and have a nice day