HELP - Dell Inspiron 8600 screen goes balck at startup

[ndegreve]

During startup the screen on my Dell Inspiron 8600 goes black right
after the black screen with the windows logo and the moving horizontal
bar. To be specific, the computer boots up and shows the Dell logo and
then the windows logo and then the screen goes black. No windows
sounds.

I have run hardware diagnostics and everything seems to be working
fine. I have checked the potential problem with the small piece of
plastic that shuts the screen off when closed - no issues. I have
inserted the windows cd and tried to repair windows - problem still
persists.

This has happened twice before in the passed year. Both times I solved
the problem by flattening the hard drive and reinstalling all software.
However, I can't help but think there is an easier answer.

I did notice that just prior to this happening Norton Antivirus
downloaded updates to be installed on restart.

Any ideas on what could be causing this and how to fix it?

Thanks in advance for your help,

Norman

 

[Gerry Cornell]

Please check Event Viewer for Warning / Error Reports in the System and
Application logs for the time it occurred and post copies.

You can access Event Viewer by selecting Start, Administrative Tools, and
Event Viewer. When researching the meaning of the error, information
regarding Event ID, Source and Description are important.

HOW TO: View and Manage Event Logs in Event Viewer in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;308427&sd=tech

Part of the Description of the error will include a link, which you should
double click for further information. You can copy using copy and paste.
Often the link will, however, say there is no further information.
http://go.microsoft.com/fw.link/events.asp
(Please note the hyperlink above is for illustration purposes only)

A tip for posting copies of Error Reports! Run Event Viewer and double click
on the error you want to copy. In the window, which appears is a button
resembling two pages. Double click the button and close Event Viewer. Now
start your message (email) and do a paste into the body of the message. This
will paste the info from the Event Viewer Error Report complete with links
into the message. Make sure this is the first paste after exiting from Event
Viewer.

--

Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England

Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[ndegreve]

will do. thanks. Will post soon

 

[ndegreve]

Gerry,

I checked out the Even Viewer and could not see anything that seemed
like the cause. The errors that I saw were either because I had to
start in safe mode or had appeared at least several times before
(without the system crashing). However, I was able to restore the
system to a prior date. This worked perfectly. I can also see that
this was prior to some windows updates, so I believe it is the windows
updates that are causing the problem. Any suggestions on what to do
about this? I could just not install the updates, but that does not
seem ideal. Also, I can see that the updates will install
automatically the next time I shut down, so I have just been using
stand by. Again, not ideal. I appreciate any thoughts you may have.
Thanks, Norman

 

[Gerry Cornell]

Norman

You're probably going have to grasp the nettle regarding updates
but can you list the ones involved. Don't forget you can Custom
install one by one to determine which, if any, causes the problem.

You say the Reports in Event Viewer do not show anything likely
to be the cause. I suggest you post copies of any Warning or
Error Reports which appear more than once over the last week.
There are few that should be ignored.

--

Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England

Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~