Solved Changed GPU, black screen with mouse after driver installation

[saywat]

Just the other day, I swapped out my Radeon HD 4850 for a GeForce GTX 550 Ti. I hadn’t used my desktop in months because I kept on getting anomalies but that’s not an issue anymore thanks to the GeForce. I installed the latest driver from geforce.com/drivers, 391.01, but just selected the display and audio drivers. When I rebooted, everything looked fine. I restarted it again just to be sure and yup, everything was still all good. At the time, I was using an old hard drive (1TB Seagate Barracuda ST31000528AS) to test things out. I disconnected the Seagate drive and connected my Western Digital 2TB Black WD2003FZEX which is a clone of the Seagate. They both have the same Windows, thus only one can be connected at a time. I did the same driver install on the WD drive but things didn’t go so well. After the "Starting Windows" logo, the screen goes black and my monitor goes into power saving mode. When waking the monitor back up, I can see the mouse.

What I’ve tried:

Installed 390.77 (second most current)
Installed 390.65 (third most current)
Installed 387.92 (tenth most current)

To uninstall a driver, I enter Safe Mode and use add/remove programs.

Some time in between these installations, I went back to the old Seagate hdd, which still had 390.77 installed, and found that the desktop looked normal. I rebooted and it was that black screen again :/

Something I eventually realized was once I got the black screen with the mouse was that I could enter my user name password and get onto my desktop. I’m able to see my wallpaper and it fills the entire screen which it didn't when there was no driver installed. I can make the right click menu appear as well. Clicking on something in the menu makes that blue loading circle appear but nothing else happens. I can also make the blue selection appear by clicking and dragging. If I hit ctrl+alt+delete, the screen goes blank again.

Help is much appreciated!

 

[saywat]

No replies; is my situation a lost cause?


Additional failed attempts to fix this:

• Created a new user name

• Disconnected the DVI cable from the monitor and gpu, as well as the power cable from the monitor. Waited 30 sec and then reconnected.

 

[saywat]

SOLVED

I've solved it, thank God!!!

I had two cables connected to the GPU: a DVI and HDMI (via DVI adapter). I disconnected the HDMI cable and viola, i could see my entire desktop!

With my previous GPU, I was never able to utilize HDMI so I hoped to be able to with this Geforce one. It didn't work out. It appears to be a monitor issue. Anyway, I left both connected and forgot to take the HDMI off.

I hope this can be of some help to someone someday.