Screens display for a moment, then go BLACK
Results 1 to 6 of 6

Thread: Screens display for a moment, then go BLACK

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jul 2002
    Location
    Northern Virginia
    Posts
    574

    Screens display for a moment, then go BLACK

    Once again, as there are different possible causes, I'm not sure in which Forum to post this.

    This time, it's my wife's PC. It is running Win XP Pro 32-bit with an AMD 4-core processor, 4GB RAM and an ATI/AMD Radeon video card with 1GB vRAM.

    Evening before last, after symptoms of slowness etc., a BSOD had appeared on-screen. A reboot was done; things worked OK for a couple of hours, then suddenly, things began "blacking out."

    Upon rebooting, the BIOS splash screen displayed for a moment, then went black. I was subsequently able to boot into the screen where you select whose account in which to log into -- again, it showed for a second and then went black.

    After repeating bootup several times, I was able to position the mouse pointer such that I could select my account (as admin), and get a cursor in the password entry box.

    I entered my password even though the window was black, and hit Return. I successfully reached the desktop, but as with the other screens, it only appeared for a moment, then went black.

    Booting into Safe Mode does nothing -- I can see the screen contents for just a second, and then it all goes black.

    I would greatly appreciate all constructive comments, advice etc., but at the moment I am going to create a Win XP rescue/repair disk on my own PC.

    In summary, I can view just about any screen if I go to the trouble of positioning the mouse pointer "just so" to log on, but no screen lasts for more than a quick moment. However, being able to see different screens (even all the way to the desktop) tells me the video card is working (ATI Radeon with 1GB vRAM).

    Could this be a video driver problem? It has worked fine for a year and a half with no big problems, and this happened rather suddenly. There is probably an ATI/AMD video driver update available, but I'm always reticent to make changes to ATI Catalyst.

    thanks in advance,
    - Dave G.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jul 2002
    Location
    Northern Virginia
    Posts
    574
    P.S. I would need to go into BIOS and set the system up to have the DVD drive as the first boot device, and I'm not sure I can do that.
    Antec 900 tower case / ThermalTake ToughPower 750w / CoolerMaster Hyper 212+ cooler / Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5 mobo / AMD Phenom II X6 1100T BE CPU / 16GB Patriot Viper Extreme DDR1866 / 2x WD 640GB SATA3 HDDs / Seagate 3TB GoFlex External HDD / 2x Sony Optiarc 40x DVD-RWs / Sapphire Radeon HD6770 1GB GDDR5 video card / Logitech Illuminated Keybd / Logitech M305 mouse / LG 22" flat panel monitor / Win 7 Pro 64 / Office 2010 / BitDefender 2012 Pro AV / NovaStor Backup
    ~ Built by ... me ~

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Mar 2000
    Location
    Hyde Park, NY
    Posts
    2,047
    Why not try?
    Biostar TA790GX A2+ 6.0
    AMD Phenom X4 9750 CPU.
    4 Gig DDR2 Memory.
    ATI HD 5450 PCIe Video
    ATI HD 5450 PCIe Video
    500 Watt P.S.
    LG W2241T Widescreen 22" LCD
    ViewSonic VA721 17" LCD
    Envision 17" LCD
    2 LG DVD Drives
    Floppy Disk Drive
    Maxtor 120 Gig Windows 7 Home Premium 32 bit
    Gateway NV5378-U Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit
    Acer Aspire V3-731 Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Apr 2000
    Location
    Friern Barnet, London, England
    Posts
    46,565
    See if you can boot into Safe Mode. If the display is OK there, then you can be pretty sure that it is a driver problem.
    Nick.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Jul 2002
    Location
    Northern Virginia
    Posts
    574
    Sparks, to quote my original post, "Booting into Safe Mode does nothing -- I can see the screen contents for just a second, and then it all goes black."

    Loading an updated driver often helps -- but how can I update the driver when the screen quits displaying after a brief moment ? I can't keep a BIOS or a desktop screen going.

    I am not so sure (as I had been before) that the monitor is OK, but I don't want to write it off until I can determine where the problem lies. However, the monitor acts the same when plugged into my PC in my home office, so that kind of rules out the video card.

    - Dave

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Mar 2000
    Location
    Hyde Park, NY
    Posts
    2,047
    As the Monitor acts the same on two different computers it seems the Monitor is the problem. Do you have (or can you borrow) a known good Monitor to try?
    Biostar TA790GX A2+ 6.0
    AMD Phenom X4 9750 CPU.
    4 Gig DDR2 Memory.
    ATI HD 5450 PCIe Video
    ATI HD 5450 PCIe Video
    500 Watt P.S.
    LG W2241T Widescreen 22" LCD
    ViewSonic VA721 17" LCD
    Envision 17" LCD
    2 LG DVD Drives
    Floppy Disk Drive
    Maxtor 120 Gig Windows 7 Home Premium 32 bit
    Gateway NV5378-U Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit
    Acer Aspire V3-731 Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •