PC boot problems

[themusicman926]

Hello,

a few months ago, I was just using my PC normally and it wasn't being slow or anything and wasn't showing any signs of malaware. I decided to restart it as I hadn't done so in a while and thought it would just be good for the PC. It did the normal restart boot process where it showed the HP logo and had the spinning dots at the bottom of the screen. It showed that for a while and then the computer briefly turned "off" as the screen went black and I heard the HDD turn off. When it turned back on, it showed the same HP logo but at the bottom it said "Diagnosing your PC". When that was done, it just took me to a blue screen that read "Your PC did not start correctly" and told me that I could either restart (which it said sometimes helps) or go to alternative options. I tried to just restart the system multiple times getting the same "Diagnosing your PC" everytime. I eventually just gave up and reinstalled Windows. 

My PC was working and rebooting fine without that problem for a few months until just recently. It was just another time when I wanted to restart my PC and it did the same brief "power down" and showed me the same message and told me my PC didn't start correctly. This time, I tried to restore my system to a point before this problem started to occur. It worked fine for a while and I was able to successfully reboot but again only a few times as I got the same message again after a while. I saw that in Windows Update it was installing a net driver from Intel and it turned out it was the same driver and same version that I already had installed. I don't know if maybe it was corrupting the current driver and that's what was causing this startup error. Another thing that I think it could possibly be is a hardware error. In the event log at the time this boot error occured, I get the Critical error message "Kernel-Power", Event ID: 41, Task Category: (63). According to the event log, the error means that my system rebooted without cleanly shutting down which sounds like what might have happened to cause my boot error.

From what I read, this "Kernel-Power" event could be caused by a bad or defective power supply/battery. But I'm truly not sure if this boot error was caused by that or just a corrupted driver or something else. I am mainly looking for the main cause of this so if anyone can help me, It would be greatly appreciated. I can give anymore information that is needed to find the cause of this. Sorry if this all was kind of confusing. I just want to know if I might have to buy a new battery or something like that. 

[Huffer]

You need to give us the model number of the laptop or product number which you can get from HP Support Assistant. 

Also you need to run a hardware diagnostic. Tap esc as you power up then F2 and test the components including hard drive and memory. 

Post results back and we will continue to discuss. 

[themusicman926]

Hello,

The product number for my laptop is V0K14AV

I tried to run the diagnostic at startup but pressing esc and F2 didn't seem to do anything. Do I have to press them multiple times or at certain times during startup?

[Huffer]

Hit power on button and immediately start tapping esc...fairly fast until you see pausing startup and then a menu comes up with various options including F2 diagnostics...only then tap F2. 

[themusicman926]

I tested the hardware and got the results "PASSED". I only did a quick test though so let me know if I need to do the longer one.

[themusicman926]

If it helps at all, I did a battery diagnostic test with HP support assistant and it crashed half way through every time so I don’t know if it’s a sign that my battery is bad

[themusicman926]

Actually, it doesn't seem to be crashing anymore when I do the test so it might not be a battery issue

[themusicman926]

My computer seemed to have another Kernel-Power error again today but it didn't happen while it was booting up.

[themusicman926]

The hardware diagnostic said everything was fine with my system unless I need to do a full scan? Sorry if I'm sounding impatient but I'd like to get this problem solved before it happens again and I have to reinstall Windows.