Sigh, Black screen after windows logo.

Kink · 03 Nov 2009

THIS IS RESOLVED NOW =) Check my last post if you are at all curious as to the cause.
Sigh, Black screen after windows logo.

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Hey all, first of all sorry if this is in the wrong forum. I don't know what exactly is causing the issue so I am not sure yet where to place this post.

So last night I turned off my PC as usual. Rebooted it this morning and every time the Windows 7 Logo disappears, all I see is a black screen, no mouse pointer, cant bring up task manager, the pc seems unresponsive. I am currently running the PC in safe mode.

There are other threads on the forums and on google, I have tried everything so far. As a list for you, this is what I have tried:

Windows Restore
Windows Repair
Reinstalling Windows 7 (will not allow me to do so from safe mode)
Booting Windows in low resolution mode.
Booting windows from the Win 7 CD I made, this causes me to get past the windows logo, then all I see is a mouse pointer and a windows background.
Using winkey + P does nothing.

I have 2 GeForce 9800 GX2s - I use 2 displays normally, occasionally using a third. The machine was running fine last night and no new software has been installed for the past 3 days. I assume the issue is multi-display related, however the pc is totally non responsive after the windows logo which suggests something else =/.

I am totally at a loss and need this PC for my work (I work from home in Austria for several companies in other countries), I have been at this since about 5am and 5 hours later there has been no change.

harpua · 03 Nov 2009

Have you tried only running with one video card and monitor and seeing if you can get it to work properly like that? I'm not sure what the next step after that would be but that would seem like a good place to start. And if it worked, at least you'd have better access to your system back and perhaps you could start adding things back to try to isolate what exactly is causing the problems.

Kink · 03 Nov 2009

Currently there is just one monitor connected to the default output (i.e. I see the post message, any of the other 3 outputs wont show the post =). I will try and take out the second card now and see if it makes any difference.

p.s. thanks for the swift response. This is kind of making me want to tear my hair out as I will potentially lose my job if I cant get this sorted today =/.

I also tried SafeMSI and edfited my registry to allow the windows install service to work in safe mode, the installer still says I cannot modify the windows installation in safe mode though.

Kink · 03 Nov 2009

I removed the SLi cable between the two cards and now I am running on normal windows, not safe mode. It will not detect my other monitor though. However I think it is safe to say I must be experiencing a gfx card issue. I can scrape by today with one monitor and try and fix this tomorrow which I have off.

Id still love to hear if anyone has experienced any sort of similar issue, and if maybe its just card burnout (these 9800 GX2s run *VERY* hot). Still, the PC is only about a year old.

It is now detecting one of the 9800 cards as an 8800 card. When I open the side panel of the machine each card takes 2 power sockets each (4 total - I assume one per GPU). All of the power sockets light up green except for the primary GPU of the second card. Sigh, this machine has started having a lot of issues this past month, highly disappointing.

Kink · 03 Nov 2009

Sorry, I keep replying to just update the post.

Ok, the LED issues above were a poorly connected wire, thats all. Everything works fine now and as both GPUs for the second card have power, it is also detecting the card correctly as a 9800 GX2.

The issue I am having now is this:

I turn the PC on, I get the windows logo then a black screen.
I reboot into safe mode and unistall the GFX cards.
I reboot the PC and it loads into windows normally.
Then it detects the GFX cards are not installs, reinstalls them. It all seems to work fine.
I reboot the pc and the problem starts again at step 1.

I am now trying to remove all trace of the old drivers hoping it will let me install new ones. I will also try and stop it from automatically updating the drivers.

This is a gfx card/driver issue then and can be moved to the appropriate forum, cheers.

*Edit*
I just cant get it working still. Whenever the drivers reinstall, i go back to step 1. I have tried removing asnd installing drivers from safe mode. Preventing windows from automatically installing drivers and just installing the Nvidia ones, nothing seems to work. Totally at my wits end now, I have a deadline in 6hrs and I have at least 4 hours work if I do it sloppily. This is just a total disaster.

ambercab · 03 Nov 2009

During the final stage of the win 7 setup, the start-up logo appeared then the screen went black. But, move the mouse and the pointer appeared.

After some minutes, I realized the monitor is connected by both analog and digital cables, so I pressed the source menu button on the monitor, switched the source, and there was win 7 patiently waiting for me

.

El stupido or what?

Tews · 03 Nov 2009

You got it sorted and thats what counts..

Kink · 03 Nov 2009

Tews said:

You got it sorted and thats what counts..

The guy above is not me, the thread starter =). however, I have resolved the issue now.

After testing all GPUs individually, I found one of the cards was showing some glitching. I took that card out, and everything works fine now, I just need to wait 3-6 weeks for Point of View to repair it, sigh.

So the black screen after the windows logo can be caused by a buggered GPU too. Please note the Pc had been working fine for weeks, then suddenly after turning it off and back on, it started to just black screen afer the windows logo. It is quite puzzling that it behaved the way it did - working in safe mode etc until the drivers were installed, but there you go. I was so sure it was something software related...