Solved Non responsive black screen at random times when booting up

[mulder1310]

I have been having some issues (a non-responsive black screen) when I start up my machine for the past few months. Initially it was only when Windows 7 started up, but of late it even hangs when I go into the BIOS. I initially thought it may have been an issue with Windows itself but now I'm not so sure. I have run the Alien Autoposy software powered by PC-Doctor supplied by Alienware (Dell) to test my hardware but it doesn't seem to show up any errors. My machine is about 5 years old and has had no hardware changes made to it.

Any ideas?

Sorry if I'm being a bit vague here, I'm a newbie at these forums.

 

[andrew129260]

...it even hangs when I go into the BIOS.....

That right there tells me everything I need to know.

It is 100% a hardware issue if that is happening. The bios would not be effected by a failing hard drive, but ram it could be. I would do both below anyway.


If your system is freezing, that is not a good sign and is usually caused by hardware failure.

Check your HDD for errors, and then run a memtest.

Disk Check

RAM - Test with Memtest86+

 

[mulder1310]

Thanks for the suggestions. I've just run both these tests with no errors. I did 8 passes on the memtest which probably was overkill, I didn't realise until later that 2 passes would've sufficed

Are there any other tests I could perform?

 

[Indianatone]

Download Hardware Monitor and give a screenshot of your voltages. This could be a power supply issue. Random hanging and failure to boot. Another thing you could do is the sata connectors on hard drives and DVD drives can get tarnished after a few years. Clean the connectors carefully with alcohol wipes and plug the cables in and unplug them a couple of times to clean up the connector. Also check all your fans are spinning when the machine starts from cold. That may be another reason it hangs. Let us know.
CPUID - System & hardware benchmark, monitoring, reporting

 

[mulder1310]

I've uploaded a couple of screenshots from the HWMonitor for you're perusal. I can't see anything untoward here though.

I will try and clean the cable connections a bit later today and check to see if all the fans are running from cold as suggested anfd I will let you know what I discover.

 

[Indianatone]

No I can't see anything amiss there either. You have water cooling on the cpu. I would have thought the CPU would have ran cooler that that but it is a hexacore so maybe that is normal. I know my 8 and 6 core CPU's run a little warmer than the 4 cores. Max temp on that chip is 67C.
So back to SATA connectors then. Or one fan is not spinning up when cold.

 

[mulder1310]

I've cleaned the sata connectors, doesn't sem to have worked. I can only assume that it's one of the fans. When I have the funds I will replace them one at a time. I just hope it's not the cpu pump as they are quite expensive to replace.

I'll keep you updated

Thanks again for the advice

 

[andrew129260]

A lot of these items should have warranties, so do not forget about that.

 

[mulder1310]

You'll be glad to hear that I have finally resolved the issue!

Apparently Dell in their infinate wisdom when assembling my Alienware machine (and many others to ) connected only one power cable to the graphics card. By doing this the graphics card (due to power connectors (rails) are incorrectly distributed on the graphics card) was not getting enough power and therefore was shutting down/restarting the PC.

Here's the link to the resolution...

Alienware Aurora ALX, R1, R2, R3, R4, May Crash Or Experience Blue Screen Errors Due to Graphics Card Power Cable | Dell US

Thank you for the assistance guys

 

[andrew129260]

You'll be glad to hear that I have finally resolved the issue!

Apparently Dell in their infinate wisdom when assembling my Alienware machine (and many others to ) connected only one power cable to the graphics card. By doing this the graphics card (due to power connectors (rails) are incorrectly distributed on the graphics card) was not getting enough power and therefore was shutting down/restarting the PC.

Here's the link to the resolution...

Alienware Aurora ALX, R1, R2, R3, R4, May Crash Or Experience Blue Screen Errors Due to Graphics Card Power Cable | Dell US

Thank you for the assistance guys

Wow congrats!! Glad you got it figured out, and thanks for posting!! Do not forget to mark it solved Never mind, see you did.