Installed Secondary HDD, Screen Now Flickers on Startup

[ItchyAlgae]

I'd be willing to wager more first posts are pleas for help than not. Here's mine:

A month back, after the original and only HDD died, I replaced it with an SSD and a clean, fresh install of Windows. Everything worked great and installation went off without a hitch. Tonight I installed a new HDD as a secondary drive for a little extra space and things went less smoothly. A few key points:

The SSD is still the OS drive.
The computer boots. No Blue or Black Screen of Death.
My Num Lock light now comes on during startup and stays on after. It didn't before.
On startup, when my boot-up screen (don't know what to call it; black screen with basic white text and a list of hardware) appears it now shows my HDD (WD5003AZEX) as occupying a spot in the PC alongside my SSD (Samsung 840 Pro).
The glowy Windows animation appears and then my lock screen appears like normal. When I enter my password, the screen flickers a seemingly consistent number of times in quick succession (which it never did before) and the computer boots to the desktop. From there, everything works normally. My files are all there, my programs work, no more flickering or weirdness.
The HDD also appears in System Information, but when I navigate to Windows Explorer I don't see it listed. Only the C Drive (SSD) is there.
Last, I haven't yet messed around in BIOS or formatted the HDD. I thought it better to hold off and proceed slowly before I start pushing buttons

I'm thinking salvation lies in Disk Management and that initiliazing the new HDD will cause it to appear, but will it do anything for the screen flickering? I'm puzzled as to why a non-OS drive would cause that, but I'm not an expert. I know when to stay put in a minefield and wait for help. And I was terrible at Minesweeper.

 

[CKWD]

Hello ItchyAlgae!

This problem could be caused by a few things.

I would suggest that you first try using a different port and SATA cable for the hard drive. Then turn on the PC and check in BIOS, your drive needs to be listed there. Then log into Windows and check in Disk Management. There you have to see your boot SSD with the C partition marked most probably as Basic Online Healthy (System) in NTFS. Under the SSD there needs to be the hard drive, most probably marked as Unknown Not Initialized and the space is in black and marked as Unallocated.

If this is showing then at least the system recognizes the drive and all you'll have to do is to initialize, partition and format it.

If not, if the drive doesn't show up either in Disk Management or BIOS as a whole, and you are sure you have connected the drive properly (SATA and power cable), then the problem lies somewhere else.

The fact that you are NOT receiving any errors or BSODs is great news! Also that everything works fine is great news.

The Num Lock just turns on and off the numeric keypad to the right and is probably something you pressed at some point.

The flickering on your boot Windows screen could be either from some sort of wave disturbance or the connected HDD is malfunctioning the system somehow.

This kind of points me to the direction that the drive might be DOA or faulty. If you have opportunity, try it on a different system/motherboard, see how it goes there. If the drive is healthy it will show up in the other system and then the problem would be in your motherboard.

Best of luck!

CK_WD

 

[TVeblen]

I will add that the first thing to do is to go into your BIOS settings, go to the BOOT Tab, and make sure the SSD is the first boot device. You will want it that way regardless of any other issue anyway.

 

[ItchyAlgae]

Opened the computer up and made sure the PCI connectors running to the GPU were snug, and they were. Gave everything a firm push to be sure and nothing moved or clicked, but the flickering is different now upon startup. Checked into BIOS too. The SSD is already given priority as the first boot device and the HDD is recognized as the second drive there. Under Disk Management the HDD also appears but still needs to be initialized.

Anything I'm missing that could explain the flickering?

 

[CKWD]

Well, I would suggest you first initialize your new hard drive and make sure it's accessible and working, and then see if the flickering problem persists.
If it continues, may be when you first plugged in the hard drive, you accidentally pulled the video cables, check them as it could be that the monitor and card are not in synch. Check all the cables on the back of the monitor and then their ends to the power socket and PC.
Or may be the monitor itself is about to go. Hopefully not!

Good luck!

CK_WD

 

[ItchyAlgae]

Well, I would suggest you first initialize your new hard drive and make sure it's accessible and working, and then see if the flickering problem persists.
If it continues, may be when you first plugged in the hard drive, you accidentally pulled the video cables, check them as it could be that the monitor and card are not in synch. Check all the cables on the back of the monitor and then their ends to the power socket and PC.
Or may be the monitor itself is about to go. Hopefully not!

Good luck!

CK_WD

That's what I'm starting to wonder, if it's the monitor. I'm now getting a brief, streaky purple vertical band that runs down the left side of monitor when it starts up and then some others that flicker, but only on startup. I wish I had another external monitor here that I could hook up. That way I could see if the problem is monitor-specific.

HDD's formatted and all is good. Shows up in Explorer, no weird sounds. Only the flickering left to solve. It'd be awfully coincidental if a monitor or GPU decided to start showing X's in its eyes in the same hour-long span I was installing the HDD.

 

[TVeblen]

Another thought: Power Supply.
You added a new device, one that draws significant 12v power. There is a possibility that you are getting a power drop on startup as everything is drawing at once.

Do you have a multimeter?

Keep in mind this is just a stab in the dark. That is a good power supply and it would be uncommon.

If I recall the 580 uses two 6-pin PCI-e power connectors. You should check those and just for kicks try another 2 from the supply.

 

[CKWD]

@TVeblen has a point, it could be either the monitor itself, the PSU, or even the GPU. Why don't you try turning your PC on but leaving the monitor off for some time, 10-15 min, an hour, for instance, but while the PC is on. That way we can know for sure if the problem is the monitor, in the case that it still flickers after you turn it on in that experiment.

Good luck!

CK_WD

 

[ItchyAlgae]

Update: I'm strongly suspecting it's the monitor. I'm getting more and more purple bands as the screen flickers to life upon unlocking and startup. Time to start shopping monitors.

 

[CKWD]

Hi again!

Thanks for the update. It's a good thing then that you're encountering the problem soon enough so that you can prepare, before the monitor completely dies. It could be a connector or something worse, but now at least you have time to act.

Cheers!

CK_WD

 

[ItchyAlgae]

Hooked up a different monitor. Screen still flickers (and it's getting worse). New cable and it still flickers. Video drivers are current. Any ideas? GPU or PSU (and how would I go about checking that?)

 

[TVeblen]

For power supply, see post #7. You will need a multimeter.

The average user can't really test a power supply (that requires some very expensive equipment) but they can do some basic tests with a multimeter to uncover obvious problems.

To test you open the case and find a spare, unused power connector coming off the power supply (a molex connector works great) and connect the multimeter to one of the black wires (black to black) and one of the yellow wires (yellow to red) by inserting the multimeter probes into the hollow pins on the molex. Normally the will stay there, but you may need some tape.
Set the multimeter to read DC voltage in the 20v range. Then you start the computer and watch the readings on the multimeter to see if there is any drop in voltage as Windows starts up. The voltage should be very close to 12v. The voltage on the multimeter may normally fluctuate +/- .10v. You are looking for something more significant than that.

For GPU the first test you should try is to start Windows in Safe Mode. See if the problem persists in Safe Mode. This test will rule out the driver or driver conflict.

 

[ItchyAlgae]

So I booted it up in safe mode and didn't get any screen flickering. There's a bit of good news. Drivers, possibly? I did install AND Catalyst Control Center and download the latest video drivers, but that didn't seem to do anything.

 

[TVeblen]

Well that narrows it down a bit to EITHER the graphics card or the graphics driver.

So let's try this. I"m going to have you do a 2-part clean install of the driver.

• First, go to the AMD website and download the most current known good driver for your video card. Save the file where you can find it.
• Next, go into Windows Explorer and in the (usually) C: drive find the Program Files > ATI folder (inside will be Drivers > and your driver version) and delete it (the whole folder).
• Next, Go into Start > Control Panel > Remove a Program and uninstall all programs for the video card. Do the actual driver last. For AMD, you may be able to select “AMD Catalyst Install Manager” and click on “Change”, then “Uninstall All Components”.
• Restart the computer.
• When the computer reboots to the desktop Windows will install it's own generic WDDM1.1 driver and you will be asked to restart again. You must do so in order to install the new Drivers > Restart.

At this point you should run the computer with the Windows generic driver for a while. See if the flickering stops.

If it does, then you could try installing the newest AMD driver from your download.

Let's see what you find.

AMD Instructions > go to Windows 7 section:
How-To Uninstall AMD Catalyst Drivers From A Windows Based System

 

[ItchyAlgae]

I'll give that a shot. I should mention that two new symptoms have popped up:

My monitor is taking a ridiculously long time from when it's powered on to when the screen comes to life. 30 seconds +

And when my computer boots and goes to the log on/password screen, there's a 5-10-second delay from when the screen comes up and when I can type in the password box. It just won't register any character entries until then. It's never done that and I've had this computer for almost five years

 

[TVeblen]

The monitor has very little to do with the performance of the PC. Meaning there is nothing that could be happening on the monitor end of things that would have anything to do with causing a problem on the PC. This applies to a PC in which the monitor is a separate component, attached to the PC by a cable. It does not apply to an all-in-one PC or a laptop exactly the same way.

So when you say: "My monitor is taking a ridiculously long time from when it's powered on to when the screen comes to life", that could mean that there is a problem with the monitor, or it could mean it takes 30 second for any output from the PC to show up on the monitor.
Test 1: with the PC up and on the Windows Desktop, turn off the monitor, wait 5 minutes or so, then turn the monitor back on. Does the image come up immediately after it turns on?
Test 2: switch the monitor on but not the PC. Let it stay on for 5 minutes or so, then start the PC. Does it now take 30 seconds for any image to show up on the screen?
Let us know the results of both tests.

The delay at the login screen means the system is busy, probably loading something (like a bad driver) and trying to resolve a conflict. It could also be hardware failure - a bad video card for instance, or a power supply problem is still not out of the equation.

So we will work down the tests and see if we can isolate the cause. Start with the monitor tests, then do the graphics driver test.

 

[ItchyAlgae]

I doubt it's the monitor. It did the same thing with the newer monitor last night.

Test 1: No, it takes quite a while to come up. It never used to.

Test 2: It comes on immediately.

On deleting the AMD folder: There's one under Program Files and another under Program Files (x86). Delete both of them?

 

[Berton]

Your System Specs show 9GB RAM, is it possible there's mismatched modules? RAM modules are usually multiples of 1GB, 2GB or 4GB but some motherboards had sufficient slots to also use smaller capacities to add up to 9GB, e.g. 2 x 4GB and 2 x 512MB = 9GB or any other such combination.

In some computer cases it's not hard to slightly dislodge an Add-in Video card. Some VGA to DVI adapters can cause problems, quality counts.

 

[ItchyAlgae]

Your System Specs show 9GB RAM, is it possible there's mismatched modules? RAM modules are usually multiples of 1GB, 2GB or 4GB but some motherboards had sufficient slots to also use smaller capacities to add up to 9GB, e.g. 2 x 4GB and 2 x 512MB = 9GB or any other such combination.

In some computer cases it's not hard to slightly dislodge an Add-in Video card. Some VGA to DVI adapters can cause problems, quality counts.

9GB RAM is a bit odd, but the computer has run fine with those sticks since it was built in May 2010.

 

[TVeblen]

I doubt it's the monitor. It did the same thing with the newer monitor last night.
Test 1: No, it takes quite a while to come up. It never used to.
Test 2: It comes on immediately.

Did you write that backwards? Because Test 1 result above shows a problem with the monitor.
If the PC is up and running and you can see the image on the monitor, then you turn off the monitor and wait for it to cool down, and it takes a long time to show that same image again when you turn the monitor back on - that's a problem with the monitor.

On deleting the AMD folder: There's one under Program Files and another under Program Files (x86). Delete both of them?

I would use the method in the AMD article linked in Post #5. Go to Control Panel > Programs > and use the AMD Catalyst Install Manager. Just select the radio button to remove everything.

Then go into the Program Files folders and see if there are any stragglers and delete them then.