Windows blue screen of death, then apparent actual PC death - anything I can do?

I'd be looking at hardware issues to start with

if it's only a few seconds i wouldn't say it was a temperature issue. I'd be tempted to plug in a different PSU

You can indeed, follow the instructions here

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows11

or

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

However from your symptoms something in the PC might be donald ducked.

I had a similar thing with my Zwift PC when I think I might have switched it off during an update.

The PC and all other Zwift gubbins were plugged into the same socket & normally when an update is running, I obviously don't switch the power off. But, on this day, I think I just flicked it off without thinking.

I ended up creating a USB thingie of Win10 and reinstalling. It was fine after that.
I'd probably check all hardware connections - has anything come loose inside the PC, then see if a reinstall of Windows works. If that doesn't, then it sounds like something might have failed.

From your description of what is happenig when you try to power it on this sounds like you have a hardware issue (possibly on top of an OS issue though).

My first step would be to unplug the hard drive and any DVD drive etc and try powering it on.
If you get the same lack of progress when you try to power it up then I'd move on to removing (or unplugging power to) any pci cards (graphics, sound, whatever else) and try using the on board video - all this assumes you have expansion cards in there!
If no joy then I'd be looking at the PSU as the culprit.

What sort of PC is it?  Standard form factor, small, micro?

Si

if it’s only a few seconds i wouldn’t say it was a temperature issue.

It sounds exactly like a temperature issue to me. Leave it switched off for an hour, try again, report back.

Cheers all.

When you say temperature issue, does that mean it was too hot? Cos it was anything but warm in the garage last night (and it's run fine in similar temperatures for a couple of years). Anyway, this was all last night so I'll try again later and see what happens.

My first step would be to unplug the hard drive and any DVD drive etc and try powering it on.
If you get the same lack of progress when you try to power it up then I’d move on to removing (or unplugging power to) any pci cards (graphics, sound, whatever else) and try using the on board video – all this assumes you have expansion cards in there!
If no joy then I’d be looking at the PSU as the culprit.

I don't mind trying a USB recovery wotsit, but for any more jiggery-pokery I'll be taking it to someone else.

When you say temperature issue, does that mean it was too hot? Cos it was anything but warm in the garage last night

Regardless of ambient temperature, a PC can get too hot if the CPU fan fails / the PSU fan fails / it's full of dust and fluff which is blocking vents / the thermal paste between CPU and heat sink has perished. You can check most of that visually.

Back when I was actually in IT, one of my most-used tools was a can of compressed air for blasting filth out of hardware innards. One of our customers was a waste management company, some of the stuff we got back from them had to be seen to be believed. They paid through the nose for network equipment with a lifetime warranty because the environment just rotted the electronics. If I got a salvageable unit back I had to run an extension cable to work on it in the car park.

Gotcha. To be fair, taking the back off it and giving it a good (gentle) hoover is probably not the worst idea.

Mechanical components wear out. Fan no turny = computer melty. Depending on the system it might go into a controlled thermal shutdown or simply shit itself.

I looked after a fleet of several hundred laptops. By a country mile, the primary cause of failure was parts that move. Traditional spinny hard disks, system fans (they didn't have separate fans for CPU/PSU, just ducting), the cable to the screen, lid hinges. In about that order. Faults like motherboard failure did happen but were vanishingly rare.

I disagree that a pc cpu will overheat and shutdown in 5 seconds, even without a heatsink attached.

However. if the fan isn't working it can be set to alarm and shut down potentially

but yes, first thing take the lid off and investigate

but as per cougar, looking after a load of pc's, generally the main failure point was PSU's, occasional ssd failure.

Laptops it generally comes down to screen damage, keyboards, broken chassis etc, then failing batteries.

Everything else tends to work beyond it's useful lifespan

They usually have some sort of hardware self diagnostic feature that you can access before booting. It'll be in the BIOS settings or more likely in the other pre-bootup menu thingy wot I have forgotten wot it's called. Just Google with the make/model of your PC to find out how to get to it. That should tell you if a specific piece of hardware is borked.

I disagree that a pc cpu will overheat and shutdown in 5 seconds, even without a heatsink attached.

In isolation perhaps not, but if it's already boiled its tits off then powering it straight back on again after it's shut down will be an near-instantaneous failure.

Besides which, it's wildly dependent on the CPU. I've seen systems where someone has removed the HSF whilst running and it's got so hot that it's scorched the socket within seconds.

OK, this is older than I remember, but,

So, an update...

They usually have some sort of hardware self diagnostic feature that you can access before booting.

I tried powering it on last night and it did (so maybe the temperature thing was one of the previous problems), and managed to bring something like this up (it's a Dell PC). Anyway, it ran a hardware check, which took ages, and everything came back clean. By that stage it was a about half nine so I just switched it off.

Tried booting this morning and got a blue screen with a 'Bad System Config Info' message. Rebooted and the Windows Repair thing came up. I tried System Repair from that, no joy, ran a Check Disk from the command prompt, that came back clear. I also tried the Reset Windows, using the 'download from the web' option, but that just failed pretty much as soon as it started.

I'd also kicked off creating new installation media overnight on the Surface Pro, but that failed sometime overnight. I'm guessing this was probably as it was still downloading stuff over our 10mb (I know...) broadband when the WiFi mesh rebooted at 2am, as it does each morning. 

So, I'm currently making a recovery drive on a USB stick plugged into the Surface Pro, which is also taking ages... Assuming that completes successfully, I'll have a go with that later

Another update - using the Recovery Drive didn't work. It started okay, chugged along doing whatever it does for a while with me checking on progress every so often, then at some point it failed (some point after 52% complete, cos that was the last one I saw).

So, I did the thing to create installation media on a USB stick, tried that this morning, that seemed to go okay until I had to select which drive to install Windows on, when I got a "we couldn't install Windows in the location you chose 0x80300024" message. I've Googled it and there's clearly stuff that can be done about it with disk partitions and the like but, frankly, I'm more likely to knacker stuff up by trying it, so I'll take it somewhere to get fixed.

Unless, of course, a STW'r in the Macc/Stockport/High Peak area wants to earn some beer money...

Give me a shout Si.