Black screen of death

[smarty2]

Anybody suffered with this really hair pulling problem? Windows boots ok, you get the logo then that is it? nowt, I have put the system disk in to affect a repair but you get to the blue screen with the flowers on and nowt? Safe mode and nowt? Puzzled! I can access the disk from my other SSD and all the folders have little padlocks on them? Never seen those before, however I can still access them. What's going on? And is there a fix apart from formatting and re-installation.

[john13]

Hi

Could be all sorts of disappointing things I guess. May be worth trying one of the Microsoft forums such as

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-GB/wind ... /community

Chances are that someone else has already seen the same problem. There are a few 'tech expert' sites as well, though best to be a bit cautious with these especially if they offer a 'free scan' or the like.
(edit) Here's one with comments on what might be a similar problem;
http://www.computing.net/answers/window ... 71853.html
May well be worth looking to see if the fans or cooling fins etc are dust-clogged (edit)

Good luck


John

[smarty2]

Thanks John, it's not a cooling problem as the cpu and gpu are liquid cooled, besides my other SSD with W7 32 bit runs fine, I have a sneaking suspicion it may be the beta drivers from Nvidia I installed just before this problem occurred. Thanks for the links, but I have a sinking feeling its a format and re-install!

[rogermatthews]

I didn't have this exact problem, but something similar - the screen appeared to freeze

When you get the flowers or whatever, is there still hard disk activity (LED flashing etc)? In my case, it turned out to be a failed video card (the card fan, at any rate). So even a reinstall didn't help matters, it just appeared to freeze during that (it hadn't, of course)

Don't rush to reinstall, if you can swap over a video card first, it's worth a try.

Out of interest, how far does the safe mode go? No option to roll back?

Best of luck

Roger

[smarty2]

Hi Roger, no, safe mode results in the same, however as stated there are no problems with hardware on my other SSD. I have formatted the drive and re-installed W7 64bit, problem resolved. Thanks for the help.

[rogermatthews]

glad it's resolved, Martin, albeit with some hassle. I hope everything was backed up!

Oddly enough, I had my own problems this morning - blue screens of death five minutes into using my PC this morning. Restarting windows normally ended up with BSODs half way through loading. Safe mode worked for me though

Regards

ROger

[smarty2]

Computers Roger are a pain sometimes, at least I can run RW's now but not Skyrim, it just doesn't like these Nvidia drivers! Just hope they put the game friendly version up soon?

Cheers.

[rogermatthews]

it just doesn't like these Nvidia drivers

I think you might be right, Martin - it's just occurred to me that I was doing an optional update of NVidea drivers when my PC crashed yesterday.

AS for your remark "Computers are a pain sometimes" - tell me about it! Yesterday I was coming to the conclusion that it was time to think about building a new one - but experience shows that, after six months, all the familiar problems return!

Cheers

Roger

[stephenjrhodes]

I had (and occasionally still have) a problem with one of the power connections that feeds the hard drives`s that give me the same problem windows wouldn`t load. After a couple of refomats it still happened. Now it it is a new power unit or leave the side off so i can wiggle it a bit and it`s ok. I think the one of the fans must move the connection.