Black screen after startup?

Hi!

I've had a problem with my laptop for a few days now. Win7 Pro 64 bit
No matter if I boot/reboot/sleep/hibernate it, it freezes after the Starting Windows animation. All I see is the black screen. It might start for the first time, but most of the time it doesn't even start for the fourth.
I have to do a forced shut down, boot it again, and I might have to repeat it 3-4-5 times till it starts properly.
I reinstalled Windows (after 10 months), I was sure it was gonna solve this. I rebooted it after installation just to see if the problem still persists. The first few reboots went fine, then it started "going black" again..
I'M out of ideas.

It starts properly in Safe mode.
But how can it be a software problem if Windows is just a few hours old??

Do you have any ideas on how to solve this?? It makes me go nuts.

Check your hard drive. You can run the long self test and check SMART attributes with GSmartControl, and then you can schedule a boot time chkdsk /R.

paul1149 said:

Check your hard drive. You can run the long self test and check SMART attributes with GSmartControl, and then you can schedule a boot time chkdsk /R.

Forgot to mention, I use a Samsung 840 EVO SSD.

Can this problem be related to it??

Ok, forget previous advice. You could run WEI at control panel / system to make sure windows is at least superficially happy with the drive. Did Samsung include any drive check utilities, or are there any online?

paul1149 said:

Ok, forget previous advice. You could run WEI at control panel / system to make sure windows is at least superficially happy with the drive. Did Samsung include any drive check utilities, or are there any online?

WEI gave 7,7 for my "primary hard drive", that's excellent, as far as I know 7,9 is the max (overall is a shitty 2.9, but that's not relevant now).

Yes, Samsung included a CD is the box, I installed Samsung Magician, it showed no problem, 3,3 Tb lifetime write. I checked its condition with HD Sentinel a few weeks ago, it was 100/97.

Ok, on the hardware end you can do a RAM test. There may be one in the BIOS or you can download a utility such as MemTest86+, I think it's called.

I had a cpu once that would not load Windows. Linux was fine. Some memory registers were broken I guess. But that's rare and a last consideration.

On advanced boot menu you could try the lo-res display option and see if that gets you in. If it does, try un/reinstalling vid driver.

On the software side you can use MSCONFIG and Scheduled Tasks to eliminate half the startups at a time, in a process of elimination to find the culprit. But it's easier to install CCleaner and use it to do both, and use MSCONFIG only to turn off any bad services.

Didn't you have the same thread open a few days ago? :/

Try uninstalling Samsung Magician if you have it.

By the way sorry if I confused you with someone else :) there are many blackscreen threads:

Here is my complete list for this problem:

Some solutions:
- Boot with Last Known Good Configuration (F8 menu)
- Restore to a prior date (System Restore) - System Restore
- Scan for malware (Malwarebytes Anti-Malware free)
- Try a clean startup Troubleshoot Application Conflicts by Performing a Clean Startup
- Check if explorer.exe is running and start from CTRL+ALT+DEL (task manager - new task)
- Verify in registry: HKEY_Local_Machine\Software\Microsot\Windows NT\Current Version\Winlogon to make sure 'shell = explorer.exe'
- Follow SFC /SCANNOW Command - System File Checker

@paul1149: I tried to boot Windows yesterday evening (from 9 to 10PM) about 30 times, didn't even succeed once.. I tried low-res mode, to no avail. Tried system restore, last known configuration, everything I found. Nothing helped.

@GokAy: No, I'm not that guy. I didn't even log in for more than a year.

Update: I had a lot of free time today morning, so I disassembled the laptop, took out the two RAM moduls (I have 2+1), and interchanged them. I assembled it, then tried to boot. IT BOOTED PROPERLY FOR THE FIRST TIME! Then we had a short power cut.. I left it there, came back a few hours later, tried to boot again, and it worked perfectly. Then tried sleep mode, works jsut fine as well!
By the way I saw a quick blue screen death yesterday evening, but it was just a flashing screen (it restarted automatically, that's default), I had no chance to record or read it, so I have no idea what I said. Can I check it somehow in the event viewer? If not, where else? It must be recorded somewhere.

I ran sfc scannow, it says: Windows resource protection did not find any integrity violations.

Edit: Restarted it to let Windows finish updating, I got the black screen again (without background lighting this time), but it managed to boot after about 20 seconds.

Any more ideas?

Excellent. Get some contact cleaner, or use a pencil eraser to clean the RAM. But brush/blow the rubber dust off before you put them back if you use an eraser.

Go to Advanced Sys Properties and turn off auto restart so you can read bluesceens.

Clean the contacts first and see if there's another BS. Otherwise don't worry about it. If so do the MemTest.