I have a Sony Vaio VGN-B100B that has not been booting up. It is plugged in (the battery is pretty much dead). I removed the battery and tried to boot up with just the power chord and I get nothing so the battery, as drained as it is, seems to act as some sort of jumper. Sometimes it will start to boot up and then I hear a little zap sound and it totally shuts down. Sometimes it shuts down immediately and other times it shuts down after about 30 seconds. And sometimes it boots up just fine. This has been going on for several weeks.

On a similar note - When I use wireless internet, oftentimes my computer will reboot itself over and over. Problem might be that I am picking up a neighbors wireless signal. But why would that cause my computer to continually shutdown and reboot? Is it some sort of wireless internet security tool? It happened at a hotel in NY but also happens in my apartment in SF.

The most common reasons your computer will randomly restart is hardware failure or blue screen errors. The more immediate problem is obviously your power issue. Normally i would suggest flushing the power from your system. But i am concerned about that zap sound you are referring to. I am thinking the zapping sound maybe the power system on your laptop shorting out. You will need to send/take your laptop for repair. Once that is repaired you we can tackle your possible software issues of random reboots.

The "ZAP" sound could just be the speakers disengaging when it shuts down unexpectedly.

There are some VIO laptops which have issues with the way in which the cables inside were designed. This caused the system to shut down if you, say, move or knock the TFT.

You might also want to check for a virus! You would be surprised as to what they can do to your system.

Thank you both for your replies. I am now thinking that the startup failures might be a short in the power chord. It only shuts off/reboots unexpectedly when I am using free wireless internet leading me to believe it might be something coming from the free wireless provider that I am getting my signal from that is causing this to happen.