Windows 7 x64 boots, but no display

[Jax Omen]

Specifically: Windows 7 boots, shows the Windows loading screen, then the monitor displays that there is no connection.

Booting into Safe Mode works fine, tried system restore from safe mode, tried installing the latest graphics drivers (clean install) from nvidia.com (it's a GTX460 GPU), verified in the registry that the shell does point to explorer.exe...

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/why-is-my-screen-black-when-i-start-windows-7

None of those helped. any "normal" boot results in a black screen. Any other suggestions to try before I do a full fresh reinstall?

 

[JamesV]

The only thing I can think of, is trying another DVI/HDMI cable (mabye bad cable?), or even trying another monitor. Personally, I'd like to rule out things like that before trying reinstalling.

 

[Bubbaleone]

Specifically: Windows 7 boots, shows the Windows loading screen, then the monitor displays that there is no connection.

Booting into Safe Mode works fine, tried system restore from safe mode, tried installing the latest graphics drivers (clean install) from nvidia.com (it's a GTX460 GPU), verified in the registry that the shell does point to explorer.exe...

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/why-is-my-screen-black-when-i-start-windows-7

None of those helped. any "normal" boot results in a black screen. Any other suggestions to try before I do a full fresh reinstall?

If it works in safe mode then there's a driver, program, or service that's causing the conflict in normal Windows. It can be a lengthy procedure, but you can use the System Configuration dialog to determine exactly what's causing the problem. I personally prefer this method when there are a lot of third-party programs that would have to be reinstalled following a fresh installation.

If the problem doesn't occur in Diagnostic startup mode, you then use Selective startup mode to identify the problem by turning individual services and startup programs on or off. This process of elimination allows you to identify the problem driver, program, or service and to diasable, uninstall, or update it.

Using System Configuration


.

 

[Jax Omen]

Well, in diagnostic mode the problem persists, so that means it's a basic windows driver/service, that isn't loaded in safe mode, that's corrupt/broken/etc, right?

At this point I'm leaning strongly towards just reformatting...

 

[Bubbaleone]

Yeah..like I said, it can be long and tedious. I agree; if you don't have a ton of apps to reinstall then a format and fresh install would be quicker.

 

[Jax Omen]

So, reinstalled windows, everything going good.

Installed display drivers, same problem reoccurs.

[edit] went through selective startup, found that eventually it boots fine once I disable the Realtek HD Audio Manager. Something about that and Nvidia hates each other, I guess?

 

[AnonymouseUser]

Do you have the Nvidia Audio drivers (for HDMI) installed? If you aren't using them, try uninstalling just the audio drivers and see if that helps.

 

[birthdaymonkey]

I had a problem like this once. Corrected it by plugging into the other DVI port. My graphics card (either a 460 or a 6870...can't remember which) was determined to prefer one of the DVI ports over the other.

 

[Jax Omen]

I never install Nvidia's audio drivers, they've always crashed any machine I try them in.

Now it's randomly freezing and rebooting abruptly during usage, sometimes booting successfully, and other times still booting to a black screen and freezing on boot.

I've run memtest86, 18 passes in a row with no issues. I don't know what else to try? It's a fresh windows install.

 

[AnonymouseUser]

If you can run a Linux Live CD for any length of time then you'll know it's a Windows issue. If not, it's a hardware issue.

 

[pandemonium]

While my troubleshooting was a bit more specific to certain programs running and problems with freezing upon waking from sleep in windows 7 x64, maybe what I've done here will help.

While your issue certainly sounds software related, it surprisingly may be hardware. Beyond that, try a different HDD, go to BIOS defaults, swap/remove DIMMs, etc...

Best of luck!

 

[Jax Omen]

Sigh, so still haven't gotten this fixed. Memtest ran for 24 hours with no errors, next I'm booting into an ubuntu liveCD and running a CPU stress test overnight, with temp monitoring.

If that passes, I guess I'll find a GPU test I can run from linux, since I still cannot boot it into windows.

If everything seems good in Linux, it passes every stress test I throw at it, I'm going to assume it has to do with core drivers for the motherboard (MSI 880GMS-E41(FX) )and just buy a new damn motherboard. This problem has taken too many hours to try to fix already V_V

 

[ky54]

When you're in Safe Mode have you looked at Device Manager to see if there's any obvious hardware conflict? Also, and this will seem odd but have you tried removing the RAM and any sound card or video card or extra drives including any CD/DVD/BR drives. When I have these problems I try to strip it down to the very basics... can it post? Are you getting any beep codes? Are all the drives configured properly in the BiOS? Next I'd put in one stick of RAM, reboot, then either go into Safe Mode and see if it fixed any conflicts or boot straight into 7. If not I'd remove every audio and video program and drivers, remove any AV and Malware programs and try again. If it's still doing it you might be looking at a wipe situation but my bet is if you reinstall windows it will keep doing it.

 

[Jax Omen]

We've reinstalled windows and when we did so, literally the only drivers we installed were the realtek ethernet adapter and nvidia's latest drivers.

If there's a conflict there, we're flat-out SOL.

I can't even figure out how to install the stress test programs in linux to see if it works there V_V

 

[AnonymouseUser]

I can't even figure out how to install the stress test programs in linux to see if it works there V_V

cpuburn: CPU Stress Tester for Ubuntu Linux

 

[ky54]

So you're not getting any beep codes?

 

[lakedude]

So this hasn't happened to me in a while, but sometimes the default video settings are "out of range" for the monitor... Like the refresh rate or something goes too high? Seems like I remember certain monitor/video card combinations being troublesome...

Got another monitor to try? You don't have 2 monitors hooked up by chance, do you? Sometimes my dual head will send the signal to the TV instead of the monitor, even if the TV is off...

If the PC works in Linux and Safe Mode I doubt if it is a hardware issue, unless it only bombed out in 3d apps...

 

[Jax Omen]

No beeps at all, it boots to the "starting windows" then blank monitor.

It *did* boot to windows and nothing changed until it randomly hard crashed.

Now it won't boot to windows, always crashes on startup.

And I know it's crashing because we left a startup sound intact so if it was just video loss we'd hear it still finish booting.

 

[ky54]

Have your tried using a different hard drive?

 

[lakedude]

So I can't tell if there is a hardware issue, or if maybe Windows got corrupted from improper shutdowns, because you have no screen to properly shut it down?

Randomly hard crashing is different than a blank monitor. Maybe I missed something...

 

[Jax Omen]

don't have a different hard drive to use, but no signs of any form of data loss, I've copied the entire contents over to some empty space on one of my drives in my PC.

it randomly hard crashed *once* per windows installation and since each hard crash will not boot again, it goes blank after "starting windows". This does not seem to resolve until I reformat and reinstall windows, which repeats the process.

 

[ky54]

I think you said further up that you install the video drivers right after you install 7... have you tried wiping the drive, install 7 without installing anything else and try booting into the 7 desktop? When Windows tries to install any drivers stop it and just let the desktop fully load. Are you hearing any clicks or any kind of noise from inside the case when it starts to boot?

 

[Jax Omen]

We actually decided to do a bit of upgrading, got her a new HDD completely (SSD aw yeah), new motherboard. Installed windows, everything was good for about a week, now the same problem again. Fails to boot every time, black screen, no windows boot up noise.

Uninstall Nvidia drivers, instantly it can boot. Reformat, install windows again, works fine until we install Nvidia drivers, then instantly the computer cannot boot.

The graphics card clearly works, given the week of no problems, and the fact that graphics work fine when booting into Linux, but something about Nvidia drivers just REFUSES to function on this PC. Short of "buy an AMD graphics card", which is going to cost $200+ for anything comparable to what she has, is there anything else we can try?

 

[pandemonium]

Just use legacy nVidia drivers and call it a day (if they work, that is)? Also, submit your findings to nVidia so they can look into it for you. Definitely sounds like you need to take this up with their support at this point.

Edit: Have you tried a different monitor? Maybe this is some goofy conflict with the drivers recognizing your monitor incorrectly and pushing a display mode that the monitor doesn't like or something.

 

[swgaspidey]

could be just the monitor crashing and not the os monitors have bad cap issues,