Why won't my laptop shutdown?

Why does my laptop shutdown by itself and speakers make a crackling sound?

• I have a Dell Inspiron 9100 laptop. Every time I power on it shuts-off by itself and the speakers make a crackling noise. However, all LED lights remain on. I have checked to make sure all fans work and they do. I have took my laptop apart to check all connections for proper seating and all are good. I have tried powering on the laptop with the battery out and it does the same thing. Don't know where to go from here. Please help! Thanks in advance.

• Answer:

  Hi... Just to get it straight; does the laptop complete POST? POST is the check the BIOS makes on all the hardware before Windows starts. If POST completes, you should hear a single beep and then see the Windows loader screen. This means all the hardware has checked out and BIOS has found a boot device to load from. If you don't see the loader screen (XP has a big Windows logo with a blue bar moving from left to right, for example), the you have hardware issues. If you do and it restarts or shuts down as Windows attempts to start with the Welcome screen, then you may have a bsod and have the option turned off. The fact that all the light remain on would suggest that the power supply is OK. Try starting in safe mode (press F8 at boot) and see if you can get into Windows that way. If you can then you have a software driver issue. Turn off the automatic reboot option by right clicking on My Computer and selecting properties. Go to 'advanced' and 'startup and recovery'. Uncheck 'automatically restart'... Next time you reboot it may show the blue screen of death (bsod) and will give you some clue as to what's up... :-)