Windows 8 boots into black screen with mouse cursor with GTX 660 Ti

[highlanderfil]

I just bought a Dell XPS 8500 PC, which came with a GT 640 and Windows 8 64-bit. I replaced the PSU (stock is 460 watt) with a Dell Silencer unit (500 watt) which worked great for me in my previous XPS 410 system with a Radeon 4890 and installed an eVGA GTX 6600 Ti. When I just booted into the initial Windows setup, it went fine, but without drivers the resolution and colors were poor as you might imagine. I downloaded the latest drivers from eVGA and installed them. Upon restart, I got a black screen with the Windows loading graphic and then a black screen. Tried a few more times - same thing. So I restored Windows, got the same poor quality display and tried the drivers from Nvidia's website. This time I got one step further - the black screen displayed the white mouse cursor which wasn't moving with any kind of rhyme or reason. Hitting keys on the keyboard does nothing. I wrote to eVGA and they suggested I try the card in another system, which I will do today (I'll just plug it back into the XPS 410 - the 460 watt PSU should handle it fine, I just wanted to keep the better one). I have a sneaking suspicion that the issue is with Windows 8, but yet others had been able to do the swap without a problem. The XPS 410 has Windows 7, so I'll get to test that hypothesis, but I'd eventually like to stick to Windows 8, so a long-term solution is still needed. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Oh yeah, this should probably be mentioned - the only "monitor" I have is a Panasonic Plasma TV which worked fine with the XPS 410/Radeon when hooked up via HDMI.

 

[kdubbs]

I had similar issues with a GTX 660 in my relatively new build running win 8. I had been using the IVB graphics, but upgraded the card once I got a 27" Microcenter IPS panel. Long story short, after card installation and connection via HDMI or DVI, I got that black screen w/ movable mouse you're referring to. I pulled out on old monitor and hooked it up via VGA and restarted, got normal functionality. I then installed the latest NVIDIA drivers from the website and switched back to the DVI cable. Things seem great now. The whole situation was a bit strange, and I can't really explain what went wrong initially.

Does your plasma have a VGA input? If not, can you borrow a monitor from somebody?

 

[codyray10]

I had a similar issue just the other day when I tried restoring my windows 8 via a recovery backup image I created. After the image had installed, Windows booted all the way up to metro for a second then all the tiles went away and I just had a mouse cursor on the screen. Rebooted the PC and then it booted up to a black screen with a cursor. I tried the repair option "Refresh my PC," but to no avail. I ended up having to reformat to fix the issue

 

[highlanderfil]

I had a similar issue just the other day when I tried restoring my windows 8 via a recovery backup image I created. After the image had installed, Windows booted all the way up to metro for a second then all the tiles went away and I just had a mouse cursor on the screen. Rebooted the PC and then it booted up to a black screen with a cursor. I tried the repair option "Refresh my PC," but to no avail. I ended up having to reformat to fix the issue

I reformatted and nothing happened...

 

[highlanderfil]

I had similar issues with a GTX 660 in my relatively new build running win 8. I had been using the IVB graphics, but upgraded the card once I got a 27" Microcenter IPS panel. Long story short, after card installation and connection via HDMI or DVI, I got that black screen w/ movable mouse you're referring to. I pulled out on old monitor and hooked it up via VGA and restarted, got normal functionality. I then installed the latest NVIDIA drivers from the website and switched back to the DVI cable. Things seem great now. The whole situation was a bit strange, and I can't really explain what went wrong initially.

Does your plasma have a VGA input? If not, can you borrow a monitor from somebody?

I think my small LCD might... I'll look at it later tonight.

Also have heard that the onboard video card might be taking over and causing this issue. Will look at it as well.

 

[f1sherman]

There was an issue with recent NV driver and Windows 8.
Where Windows 8 would automatically update display driver and cause black screen because of conflict between the two drivers.
If I remember well, disabling auto-update was needed.

Windows 8 driver is same like NV.
Only difference is it's WHQL, and it doesn't include all parts of NV GeForce driver installer.
So your washed-out color could be calibrated with identical or better end results than if using NV installer.

 

[highlanderfil]

There was an issue with recent NV driver and Windows 8.
Where Windows 8 would automatically update display driver and cause black screen because of conflict between the two drivers.
If I remember well, disabling auto-update was needed.

Windows 8 driver is same like NV.
Only difference is it's WHQL, and it doesn't include all parts of NV GeForce driver installer.
So your washed-out color could be calibrated with identical or better end results than if using NV installer.

My washed-out color is no driver at all. It's the "Standard VGA Adapter" kinda deal, 256 colors or whatever it is.

Looks like Windows 7 should be a good solution. Since I was planning on doing that anyways, good to know

 

[highlanderfil]

Strangest thing in the world happened - I installed the older drivers, the ones that came with the video card - and voila, everything works. The quality of the image (especially text) leaves much to be desired, however, and I need to figure out how overscan works because some of the border of the screen is off, but it works.