Screen Goes Blank After Windows Logo

vivi0

Yesterday I used my computer all day, burned a CD, etc. It worked beautifully. This afternoon I turn it on, and the screen goes blank after the Windows logo. The monitor actually goes into "stand-by" mode, which means it isn't even getting a video signal from the computer.

I googled the problem and it seems the catch-all solution is to boot into safe mode and change your screen resolution to a conservative one (like 640x480 at 256 colors) and then gradually move it up. And if that doesn't work you're supposed to install the latest video drivers.

Well, I booted into safe mode, and in safe mode everything works: I can log in, surf the net, etc. and the screen constantly stays on. I set my screen resolution to 640x480, and it didn't help one bit. The system still got a blank screen after the logo. I then did Safe Mode w/ Networking and downloaded the latest Nvidia drivers from their site. I installed them, restarted, and hoped for the best. No luck, same problem.

At this point, I went ahead and Googled some more. Someone said that disabling the video card in Device Manager fixed the problem for him. I did that under safe mode, rebooted, and voila! Problem solved. It got past the Windows logo, let me log in, and everything worked beautifully. Or at least I thought. Keep in mind that at this point the video card was still disabled under Device manager. I went through the New Hardware wizard that popped up. It found the nvidia driver and offered to install it. I pressed Next, and WHAM! My screen turns off again. So, whenever the video card device is created, the screen dies. Both versions of the nvidia driver that I have do this, so I don't think it is a driver issue.

I also tried to do a system restore to this past Friday, when everything certainly worked. No luck, same problem.

So, to recap: If I go into safe mode and delete the video card form the device manager, the system can boot in normal mode and I can log in and everything. However, the second I install the video card device, the monitor goes into stand-by.

This system has been working beautifully for 3 months and I haven't had a single problem since today. I didn't install any software yesterday and haven't installed any hardware since the system was first build three months ago. Everything works fine in safe mode, and everything works in regular mode if I delete the video card device, which leads me to believe this is not a problem with hardware.

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance..

Thermaltake Tai Chi
Intel Pentium D 805 @ 3.8ghz
Abit AW8D Max
Nvidia GeForce 7900GT
2GB Mushkin DDR2 @ 756 mhz
Antec Neo HE 550W PSU

Leonardo

Try these two things:

1. Solution
- Go to manufacturer's site and download latest drivers for your video card
- Safe Mode, uninstall all video card drivers
- Reboot the computer into safe mode
- Install fresh video drivers
- Restart system and let it start Windows normally

2. Solution

Check your BIOS settings and see if you can lock the PCI bus frequency and set PCIe frequency to "auto".

It sounds like either your video drivers are corrupted or your overclock is over stressing components on the PCI/e bus. Sometimes an overclock can bring problems even days or weeks after having been without problems.
-

vivi0

Thanks for the advice.

I admit that I half-expected there to be streaks in my 3D games due to the video card being overstressed. Suffice it to say that I have searched my motherboard manual frontwards and backwards for a PCI lock... I have been wanting to do that since I overclocked, but no such function exists in my BIOS

I followed the Solution #1 exactly as you typed: no luck. It's still doing the same thing.

EDIT: OK, so I have a backup from about a month ago, maybe a little longer ago. Is it time to consider it? I just absolutely hate to overwrite my system if it isn't necessary. I'll probably burn my Documents and Settings to a DVD before restoring the backup, but I'm sure I'll find a bunch of programs that I have installed in that time (Uhh... on second thought, my Docs and Settings is 40GB. Forget that)

vivi0

Also I can confirm that this has nothing to do with the drivers that I am installing fresh. I repeated your procedure, but this time installing a difference, older version of the NGO optimized Nvidia drivers, different from the ones Nvidia distributes. They demonstrated the same symptoms. In fact, if I install either driver under normal mode (I can only get in normal mode with the drivers uninstalled, of course), during the install when it adds the video card device to the system, the screen goes blank. For some reason Windows is totally throwing up on this video card device, regardless of driver version.