Black screen on Win 7 Setup

Hello everybody, I am new here and I have a problem with the installation of Windows 7.

I bought a new PC I assembled myself:

- AMD Athlon Phenom II X4 3.2 GHz 64 bits
- 4 GB RAM DDR3 1333MHz Kingston
- Motherboard MSI 770-G45
- ATI Radeon 5770 1GB DDR5 PCIE 2.1
- Samsung SpinPoint 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB SATA II
- LG BlueRay 10X
- Power Supply Unit Corsair 550W (according to their website it should be just ok for this system)
- No overclocking whatsoever

I think it can pretty much run 7.
And I also bought two copies of Windows 7, specifically:

- Windows 7 Professional 64 bits English
- Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bits Finnish

they're absolutely original, I have serial number, hologram sticker and everything.

The computer I am using now is not the aforementioned, is another one on which I run XP Pro SP3.

After I assembled the new PC, I tried installing Win 7 Pro on it, but more or less when it is copying files the screen goes black and apparently the installation stops (it stayed even 5 or more minutes that way and nothing happened).
By "more or less when it is copying" I mean that it may happen while setup shows the list of available disks, or while partitioning, or while copying/expanding setup files (on this topic, I noticed it is blazing fast in formatting over 200GB, and it takes an eye's blink to copy Windows setup files, while when it says that it is expanding it always shows 0% completed and after a brief while screen goes black. Is it normal for it to be that fast?).

- I checked every single connection, unplugged and re-plugged everything, same problem
- I tried to remove anything not strictly necessary, same problem
- yes, my graphics card and monitor support DVI, I tried both DVI and VGA connection, same problem
- I loaded BIOS optimal default settings, same problem
- I tried to install the Finnish version instead, same problem
- I tried to install on a different hard disk, same problem
- I tried to use another DVD player, same problem

Then I tried to install Windows XP, it worked just fine, installed everything and got to the desktop, no problems. I think it definitely means the problem is just with Win7. Apparently many others have the same issue, I didn't find a single solution which worked for me.

I found this page, according to which there is some trouble with the graphics driver used during the setup.
So I downloaded the AutoUnattend file, put it on a USB key along with my card's drivers, and infact the setup looks a bit different while doing this (e.g. it asks me which version of Win 7 I am going to install and the graphics is slighlty different). The setup doesn't do anything by itself about the drivers during the installation though (and infact it would go black screen again), so I tried to manually load the drivers from the USB key but the setup said there's no valid driver or something like that.

What I still didn't try:

- Remove one RAM stick so that I would have just 2 GB instead of 4 GB
- Flash the BIOS
- Try with a different monitor (just for the hell of it)
- Try with a different graphics card (I can't, the one I have in the other PC is AGP and my new motherboard doesn't support it)
- Install Windows XP and try to upgrade to 7 from that

Please, please, please, if you have any suggestion (among the above mentioned things or another one), or know what it might be the cause of the problem (I can't swear it's the graphics card) let me know, I am banging my head against a wall with this thing since two days, I hardly ate anything in the meanwhile and I am close to being extremely desperate.
If you have any question please do not hesitate to ask.

As a side note, apparently I bought the exact same MoBo, graphics card, RAM and processor (except that it's faster) than a friend of mine, and he didn't have this troubles during installation (which took place like 6 months ago, so there isn't any chance that his drivers were more up-to-date or something...), which is pretty fishy.

Thank you very much for all you can do.

Hey,
Welcome to Seven Forums. This sounds like a weird issue.
Have you tired another installation disc? Sometimes, an installation disc will be corrupted or scratched, and if it doesnt read right, it could fail, as in your situation.

Try to use another disc and let us know how it goes,
Ben

Hello again.

@karlsnooks

The clean install procedure you were talking about wasn't, like I said, any different than what I tried over and over. (It is basically put the dvd in the computer and follow the instructions...)
In case I did not explain myself before, this is a brand new computer, the hard disk empty and unpartitioned.
I have OEM Windows discs, but like the page you linked says, the procedure doesn't differ much than the one with retail versions.

I don't see why you talk about system restore points or system image back-ups, since my problem is that I don't get past the installation and if I ever managed to the point I can do a system image back-up then my problem would be long gone.


Let's come to what I tried today.

I found this page on Microsoft's KB pages, which states basically the same solution I linked in my first post. The problems appears to be that one, and I did exactly like they say in there (the AutoUnattend part) and it didn't work.
I had first tried the two monitors workaround they talk about, and both monitors went black.

One thing which is very fishy is that when that happens the computer freezes to the point that the Reset switch doesn't work. It normally does, as I tried to reset the PC during POST, and then it would reset. I just don't understand what could possibily happen to prevent the Reset button from working.

Next attempt: removed one RAM stick, and also managed to get to advanced options via the F8 key and select resolution 640x480 (which didn't look any different than before, really). Guess what? Black screen.

It actually seems that it is only a matter of time for the black screen to show up - if I am fast enough, then it won't show up before the expanding files phase, otherwise it shows up before, like in the disk formating/partitioning phase.

Remaining options (given that I don't wish to change my hardware) are:

- Try to install Windows XP (which will work just fine), install proper video card drivers on it and try to upgrade to 7. I tried to put the Win 7 DVD in a computer running 32-bits XP, and it says it is not compatible, so I might try on XP 64-bits.

- Flash the BIOS.

- Call Microsoft support.

Comments? Any other suggestion?

EDIT: experimentation going on with safe mode... I'll keep you up to date...

Joe,
Try flashing the BIOS. Its worth a shot. If your going to Seven from XP, your BIOS very well could need an update/flash.

Once you do this, try installing seven again. IF it doesnt work, play it safe. Install XP again, since you had it working, and then upgrade to Seven. If you choose, you can do a clean install after you get the Upgrade all set and you should have no problem there. Dont waste your time putting anything on XP. It will be just a temp until you install Seven.

Keep us updated,
Ben

JoeDerivative said:

Hello again.

@karlsnooks

The clean install procedure you were talking about wasn't, like I said, any different than what I tried over and over. (It is basically put the dvd in the computer and follow the instructions...)
In case I did not explain myself before, this is a brand new computer, the hard disk empty and unpartitioned.
I have OEM Windows discs, but like the page you linked says, the procedure doesn't differ much than the one with retail versions.

I don't see why you talk about system restore points or system image back-ups, since my problem is that I don't get past the installation and if I ever managed to the point I can do a system image back-up then my problem would be long gone.


Let's come to what I tried today.

I found this page on Microsoft's KB pages, which states basically the same solution I linked in my first post. The problems appears to be that one, and I did exactly like they say in there (the AutoUnattend part) and it didn't work.
I had first tried the two monitors workaround they talk about, and both monitors went black.

One thing which is very fishy is that when that happens the computer freezes to the point that the Reset switch doesn't work. It normally does, as I tried to reset the PC during POST, and then it would reset. I just don't understand what could possibily happen to prevent the Reset button from working.

Next attempt: removed one RAM stick, and also managed to get to advanced options via the F8 key and select resolution 640x480 (which didn't look any different than before, really). Guess what? Black screen.

It actually seems that it is only a matter of time for the black screen to show up - if I am fast enough, then it won't show up before the expanding files phase, otherwise it shows up before, like in the disk formating/partitioning phase.

Remaining options (given that I don't wish to change my hardware) are:

- Try to install Windows XP (which will work just fine), install proper video card drivers on it and try to upgrade to 7. I tried to put the Win 7 DVD in a computer running 32-bits XP, and it says it is not compatible, so I might try on XP 64-bits.

- Flash the BIOS.

- Call Microsoft support.

Comments? Any other suggestion?

EDIT: experimentation going on with safe mode... I'll keep you up to date...