Black Screen

[Guest]

When turning on my computer, the Dell screen appears with the bar that
indicates it is "Loading". Then the screen turns all black with just the
cursor in the top left corner. I put in the recovery Operating System CD,
but nothing happens. Do you think the computer is "shot"?

 

[jonah]

When turning on my computer, the Dell screen appears with the bar that
indicates it is "Loading". Then the screen turns all black with just the
cursor in the top left corner. I put in the recovery Operating System CD,
but nothing happens. Do you think the computer is "shot"?

Looks that way to me, its not loading anything. The Dell Screen sounds
like the Boot Screen which is built into MOBO BIOS however you should
get a post test "BEEP" before the screen comes up, don't know about
Dells on this I would not have one given me . If you go into your
BIOS (see your manual) you can usually disable this screen in which
case you will see boot progress / error messages which will hopefully
give you a clue.

No BEEP = probably RAM failure (but I think thats unlikely as you get
the Dell Screen), otherwise it could be a corrupt master boot record.
No way of telling without some sort of error message.

Another thing to try is boot into the safe mode menu if you can and
load the "last good configuration" option - might work.

Jonah

 

[Guest]

Thanks for replying. I feel the same way about Dell. What do you have? I
bought a HP in mid May and have already had to replace the mouse and I'm on
my THIRD monitor. Now at least once every time I use it, the screen freezes.
The cursor is still active, but I can't close any programs. I've tried
alt/ctrl/del and closed every item listed (which was only HP updates). Of
course, then I can'tc lose that screen. I have to either log off or restart
to get back in business. I'd be very interested in your opinion as to which
system is any good.

 

[Bill Sharpe]

Thanks for replying. I feel the same way about Dell. What do you have? I
bought a HP in mid May and have already had to replace the mouse and I'm on
my THIRD monitor. Now at least once every time I use it, the screen freezes.
The cursor is still active, but I can't close any programs. I've tried
alt/ctrl/del and closed every item listed (which was only HP updates). Of
course, then I can'tc lose that screen. I have to either log off or restart
to get back in business. I'd be very interested in your opinion as to which
system is any good.

:

I have an HP Pavilion, now five years old. No problems to speak of, at
least after upgrading from Windows ME to XP a couple years back. HP said
they wouldn't support XP on the machine, but I really didn't need to
contact them after upgrading. And my Dell laptop, again with Windows XP,
is working just fine. I suppose it's an example of "Your mileage may vary."

Bill

Bil