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Okay, so this is a bit of a weird one. I'm a Mac and Ubuntu guy these days so I've ended up hitting the end of my knowledge.
TL;DR - All users apart from my user (the original admin user) crash a couple of minutes after login. The laptop restarts, and the error reads 'No bootable device'. The system must then be shut down and restarted.
There is no way of getting a stable login as a user other than the original admin user; the system crashes. A freshly created user will crash out as well, but the admin user can be left signed in all day, with no issues.
Upgrading from Windows 7 to 10 has not affected the problem.
More Detail
System is an Acer Aspire S3 I7 from 2012/13.
So - I had an old laptop where I had the original admin user account. I then set my wife up with an admin user so she could use it for work.
She installed some things - a VDE for work, Outlook, etc - though at this stage, I don't think that is related to the issue, from what I can tell (having done a clean install of Win7 after this, giving her a fresh user and the same issue cropping up again).
Pretty quickly after logging in to her account, the system would freeze and then restart. Upon restarting, there would be an error that said 'No Bootable Device' and the computer would have to be restarted again.
Running in Safe Mode or Safe Mode with Networking is be stable enough to run for hours; it's just starting it normally for any user other than mine that is the issue.
I've tried various debug paths from Windows and forums, as well as checking that the startup programs are the same for all users - they appear to be, and there's nothing that I can see that looks like a virus or unexpected daemon program. I've uninstalled bundled bloatware and anything that appeared to be a potential issue, and I don't think it's a virus or software issue.
I think it's Windows, especially as upgrading to Windows 10 has resulted in exactly the same issue. My user account runs fine, but any other user account (including creating a new account, switching to it and logging in) will cause the system to crash. We're talking a matter of minutes, whereas my user since upgrade has been sitting on its desktop screen with Chrome open for two hours - no issues.
Anybody have any ideas?
Alex Lynham
Posted 2016-09-18T20:28:04.897
Reputation: 101
What kind of crash? BSOD? Have you looked in the system event logs for any clues? – DavidPostill – 2016-09-18T20:45:14.520
It was a BSOD on Win7, just a flash and restart on Win10. The event logs weren't very illuminating to be honest, but I didn't especially know what I was looking for. – Alex Lynham – 2016-09-18T21:04:03.040