Blank screen after startup

[Guest]

I am running a Dell Inspiron (laptop) 2500 with a 1GHz Pentium III. It has
Microsoft Windows XP Home with all relevent updates.
Today I restarted the computer after using it. The system booted fine and
the Windows XP loading screen appears as normal. After the screen has
finished the screen goes blank and does not recover. The system seems to
startup as normal as there is little/no CPU activity after a minute or so and
the startup sound is played. The only problem is the blank screen.
Being a laptop it has onboard intel graphics displayed through the LCD
screen. I feel that some sort of virus has struck disabling the graphics
driver. Any help that can be given to overcome this would be greatly
appreciated.

 

[Guest]

Addition:
OK, on startup I pressed F8 to access the safe mode menu. I selected "enable
VGA mode". This seemed to make it then work. I adjusted the settings to the
best resolution and colour depth and it seems normal. What is VGA mode and
can I now use it without having to do that every time I boot up?

 

[Millybags]

Have you tried an external monitor attached to your laptop? If so, do you
get the same result? If you get normal desktop on the external monitor, it
may be that there's a problem with the laptop screen.

What makes you think it's a virus?

 

[Guest]

Have you tried an external monitor attached to your laptop? If so, do you
get the same result? If you get normal desktop on the external monitor, it
may be that there's a problem with the laptop screen.

What makes you think it's a virus?

Well I am sure it is not a fault with the monitor, nor with any hardware
component as the monitor and graphics work perfectly before startup. I.e. the
bios screen and windows loading screen appear without issues. It is only
after this that the screen goes blank.

 

[Malke]

Well I am sure it is not a fault with the monitor, nor with any
hardware component as the monitor and graphics work perfectly before
startup. I.e. the bios screen and windows loading screen appear
without issues. It is only after this that the screen goes blank.

Go back into Safe Mode and go to Add/Remove Programs. Tick the checkbox
to Show Updates. Look in the Updates that were just installed to see if
you installed a driver update for the Dell video card. If you did, roll
back the driver.

How to Roll Back a Device Driver - http://tinyurl.com/86yb6

If you don't see anything in that section for a driver update, close out
of Add/Remove Programs and do a System Restore to the day before the
problem.
Start>Programs>Accessories>System Tools>System Restore
"Restore my computer to an earlier time".

Malke

 

[Guest]

As this is a very recent occurrence, you could try booting into safe mode,
select System Restore and then restore to the day before yesterday. If this
works for you, please let us know.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for all your suggestions. I seem to have reapaired the issue by
switching to VGA mode in the safe mode menu. I hope this will sustain itself
long term. If not I'll write back here. Cheers.