Desktop PC Concerns, windows hang + crt alt del

I've have done about 4 clean installs on Windows 7 to fix other issues and finally so good so far apart from a couple of things.

Firstly when I boot up after the windows logo, I'm faced with a black screen with cursor, only for a few seconds though. After that it goes to the logon. Does anyone else get this?

Another thing is when I press crt+Alt+Del, Theres a short transition on the screen (squares, pixels) that doesn't look right. It was fine before I installed the LATEST graphics driver (12.8 AMD Cataylst) Thanks

Hello Frank and welcome to Seven Forums. My usual disclaimer: I'm not an expert at anything.

From what you've said, both issues (black screen + cursor and the squares and pixels) seem to be graphics related, at least as far as how the screen is displaying things. And since these issues apparently started after you installed the latest graphics driver, I think I'd try rolling back to the previous driver just to see if it fixes things. (Don't forget to make a restore point - or better yet a system image - just in case.)

FWIW, drivers that are supposed to be the "latest and greatest" don't always work with a specific computer. The old saying "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" truly applies to drivers.

Ok, thanks for the reply, I will download an earlier version and get back to you.

FrankFisher said:

Firstly when I boot up after the windows logo, I'm faced with a black screen with cursor, only for a few seconds though. After that it goes to the logon. Does anyone else get this?

I get similar, I get the animated logo, the screen then blanks or more precisely, the video signal switches off (monitors osd confirm no video signal) for about 3 or 4 seconds and then I get the login screen.

marsmimar said:

FWIW, drivers that are supposed to be the "latest and greatest" don't always work with a specific computer. The old saying "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" truly applies to drivers.

Quite agree, I'm using the onboard soundcard which works really well with the basic MS driver, although I don't any sound from the front panel socket, when I install the correct (and newer) driver for the soundcard although I can then use the front panel jack, the audio quality isn't as good.

If that's not it then wiping the HD before reinstall can sometimes solve boot-related anomalies which might be related to old boot code. This solves half of all install problems.
Diskpart Clean Command
Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7

Be sure to follow the Best Practices for reinstall in the tutorial which are the same for retail, especially how drivers are handled, keeping a Clean Boot, and the other tools and methods which work best.

gregrocker said:

If that's not it then wiping the HD before reinstall can sometimes solve boot-related anomalies which might be related to old boot code. This solves half of all install problems.
Diskpart Clean Command
Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7

Be sure to follow the Best Practices for reinstall in the tutorial which are the same for retail, especially how drivers are handled, keeping a Clean Boot, and the other tools and methods which work best.

What one am I meant to do, or am I meant to do both?

Clean is sufficient 99% of the time and is near instantaneous.

Clean all can take several hours and is nearly always unnecessary due to the very high success rate for clean.

Ok so I did what you guys said and cleaned the disk, and installed windows 7 sp1. The hanging does not appear anymore, but the pixelated blocks do. I'm going to assume thats AMD's crappy drivers, so thanks for your guys help!

I would try another GPU to be sure, or keep trying other drivers back to and including Vista.

Have you reinstalled the card checking for debris in slot?

It only happens after I install the drivers though, I have a feeling its to do with my DVI-VGA connection, Also when I change the colour quality to 16 bit in Cataylst Control Center, the blocks are reduced.