Computer won't display when starting Windows

[techwanabe]

My daughter was having problem with Rig #2. It would try to boot, the POST screen would display and it would even show the windows screen (the one with the black back ground and windows flag) but after that the screen would go dark. I pulled out the display adaptor thinking it had gone bad but it does the same thing with the onboard video.

So I figure, maybe do a Windows repair. It loads the windows driver but as soon as it says "Starting Windows" nothing else happens.

Something is really screwy in Denmark. It won't display the desk top, just a black screen. I can't even run a windows repair. Idea's?

 

[oynaz]

Perhaps the resolution has been set too high.
Try hitting F8 at bootup and use VGA mode.

 

[Blain]

Sounds like a driver issue to me.
Use something like Driver Cleaner in Safe Mode to clean out all the video drivers.
Then only load the newest driver for the video card in the system.

The second option would be to clean out all the drivers, then boot to Windows.
If Windows loads fine (but at lower resolution), it was probably a driver issue.
If Windows still doesn't load after the drivers are cleaned out, it's probably bad hardware.

 

[techwanabe]

Update:

Its working now but as I mentioned, it seems weather or not I had the Geforce 6600GT video card, or onboard video (which is build in to this particular mother board) the computer would display the POST screen, then the windows loading screen with the flag, and then go blank. When trying to repair windows it would load all the drivers and then stop at the "Starting Windows" message (blue background screen) and just hang there.

I suspected drivers too. I tried putting an older Geforce Ti4800 card in and booted to safe mode. I chose safe with networking and the list of drivers etc would flash across the screen and then stop - and nothing would happen.

I finally gave up for the evening so my daughter goes and picks up the tower, turns it upside down and it boots (normally with the older video card and I hadn't loaded the drivers for it yet) it booted to the desk top.

This computer has been flakey and a mystery for a couple months now. It began freezing in the 3D MMO games (which I attributed to the video card over heating or going bad - the Ledtek GF6600GT btw). Then it started randomly powerin down and rebooting. I thought maybe the power supply was bad so its been replaced with a new one. The motherboard is new, only in use since last March. Only the CPU and Case is original from when I first built it about 6 years ago. Yeah, I should toss the platform but I'm unemployed and don't want to spend on a new computer right now so just milking this one along anther 6 months or year since it is fast enough for my daughter to run Sims 2

 

[The Bakery]

So the aftermarket GPU and the integrated GPU both fail to get you to desktop?

Can you still hear windows sounds after blanking out such as clicking the mouse, or has the machine crashed and frozen?

You get freezes that popped up one day, then they continue and seem intermittent and without reason (the upside down situation)

Just out of curiosity - have you tested new RAM or memtested the RAM in the machine?

I would recommend that you could be dealing with a failing motherboard.

 

[techwanabe]

Originally posted by: The Bakery
So the aftermarket GPU and the integrated GPU both fail to get you to desktop?

Can you still hear windows sounds after blanking out such as clicking the mouse, or has the machine crashed and frozen?

You get freezes that popped up one day, then they continue and seem intermittent and without reason (the upside down situation)

Just out of curiosity - have you tested new RAM or memtested the RAM in the machine?

I would recommend that you could be dealing with a failing motherboard.

I put an older video card in, it also displayed the same symptoms. Booted and displayed the Windows "flag" screen and then went black. I gave up but my daughter turned the computer upsidedown and tried restarting it. Its been working now for the past 3 or 4 days. wierd.

I haven't tried a mem test on the memory, no. I didn't hear the windows sounds but not sure if the sound was down. The mother board is almost brand new, less than six months old, but I guess they can fail. I had the old Epox board in there for 3-4 years and it was finally getting flakey and I finally tossed it last spring. Its got a cheap SIS board in there for now. I imagine the next major upgrade will be a new platform - ie, motherboard/CPU/memory based on the Quad core CPUs