Vista black screen on log in

[hielan' laddie]

I have a _serious_ problem with Windows Vista Business.

Approximately two thirds of the times I restart the system, I get normal
behaviour:

I get to the login screen, enter my password, I see the 'welcome' screen with
the little spinning circle, then I see a black screen with the mouse pointer
with the little spinning circle, then Windows Explorer loads and I get the
desktop and all is well.

However, about one third of the time, I get the following:

I get to the login screen, enter my password, see the 'welcome' screen and
the little spinning circle, and then I see a black screen with the mouse
pointer... and that's it. There's disk activity. There's sounds. Something
_seems_ to be happening, but all that's visible is a black screen with a
cursor. If I hit control-alt-delete, about 90% of the time I get the task
manager dialog. I can then log out, and when I go to the login screen again
and reenter my password I get normal behaviour. About 10% of the time
control-alt-delete doesn't work, and I have to hit the power button.

This does not appear to be a driver issue; I can see the cursor, I can
usually get the task manager, so video is working. I have a NVIDIA GeForce
6200 video card with the latest drivers. Automatic updates is turned on.

It does not seem to be an activation problem; I'm running Vista Business,
with a valid key and it's fully paid up. And, besides, it works most of the
time.

I have tried scrubbing the Vista volume and reinstalling. If anything, the
black screen is now more frequent than before.

Is there a solution, short of nuking the partition and going back to XP?

I'm typing this on my Mac 'cause Vista just went belly-up on start-up _again_
and, given how long it takes to start, I simply couldn't wait on it. It's a
sad commentary when a four-year-old Mac boots faster than a one-year-old
Windows machine...

 

[Malke]

I have a _serious_ problem with Windows Vista Business.

Approximately two thirds of the times I restart the system, I get normal
behaviour:

I get to the login screen, enter my password, I see the 'welcome' screen with
the little spinning circle, then I see a black screen with the mouse pointer
with the little spinning circle, then Windows Explorer loads and I get the
desktop and all is well.

However, about one third of the time, I get the following:

I get to the login screen, enter my password, see the 'welcome' screen and
the little spinning circle, and then I see a black screen with the mouse
pointer... and that's it. There's disk activity. There's sounds. Something
_seems_ to be happening, but all that's visible is a black screen with a
cursor. If I hit control-alt-delete, about 90% of the time I get the task
manager dialog. I can then log out, and when I go to the login screen again
and reenter my password I get normal behaviour. About 10% of the time
control-alt-delete doesn't work, and I have to hit the power button.

This does not appear to be a driver issue; I can see the cursor, I can
usually get the task manager, so video is working. I have a NVIDIA GeForce
6200 video card with the latest drivers. Automatic updates is turned on.

It does not seem to be an activation problem; I'm running Vista Business,
with a valid key and it's fully paid up. And, besides, it works most of the
time.

I have tried scrubbing the Vista volume and reinstalling. If anything, the
black screen is now more frequent than before.

Is there a solution, short of nuking the partition and going back to XP?

From your description of the problem - particularly in light of the
fact that you did a complete clean reinstall - I would be looking at
hardware issues, not software (Vista) issues.

http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/page2.html#Hardware_Tshoot

Standard caveat: Testing hardware failures often involves swapping out
suspected parts with known-good parts. If you can't do the testing
yourself and/or are uncomfortable opening your computer, take the
machine to a professional computer repair shop (not your local
equivalent of BigComputerStore/GeekSquad). Have all your data backed up
before you take the machine into a shop.

Or, if this is a laptop and/or still under warranty, contact the
computer mftr,'s tech support for repair/replacement.


Malke

 

[Conley]

Many people, including me, have posted about having this problem. To my
knowledge, no one has ever suggested a solution. The only work-around
previously discussed is to bring up task manager, kill the process
explorer.exe, and then restart explorer.exe. On my computer, this always
bring up the desktop, but it then takes a long time for the internet
connection to become functional. I will give your suggestion - about logging
off and then back on - a try and see if that gets me to a fully-functioning
desktop any faster.

 

[hielan' laddie]

From your description of the problem - particularly in light of the
fact that you did a complete clean reinstall - I would be looking at
hardware issues, not software (Vista) issues.

I doubt this. The same hardware runs XP fine (different partition on same 250
GB drive) and used to run Ubuntu fine (I reformatted the Ubuntu partition to
install Vista).

It's all standard stuff:

MSI motherboard, 2.83 GHz Pentium 4 CPU, 2 GB DDR RAM, one 80 and one 250 GB
drive, a Sony combo drive and a HP DVD burner, a NVIDA 6200 video card. Vista
handed out a 3.0 rating.

What's happening is that sometimes Windows Explorer doesn't load but
everything else works... and that's got to be software. The only way that it
could be hardware would be an intermittent fault, which would have to be a
very strange fault as it only shows up on startup and it allows the mouse
pointer to show up on screen.

http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/page2.html#Hardware_Tshoot

Standard caveat: Testing hardware failures often involves swapping out
suspected parts with known-good parts. If you can't do the testing
yourself and/or are uncomfortable opening your computer, take the
machine to a professional computer repair shop (not your local
equivalent of BigComputerStore/GeekSquad). Have all your data backed up
before you take the machine into a shop.

I built this particular machine myself.

 

[hielan' laddie]

Many people, including me, have posted about having this problem.

I was afraid that this might be the case.

To my
knowledge, no one has ever suggested a solution. The only work-around
previously discussed is to bring up task manager, kill the process
explorer.exe, and then restart explorer.exe. On my computer, this always
bring up the desktop, but it then takes a long time for the internet
connection to become functional. I will give your suggestion - about logging

off and then back on - a try and see if that gets me to a fully-functioning
desktop any faster.

It's got to be a bug in Windows Explorer. Microsoft doesn't seem to want to
acknowledge it, though.

 

[Conley]

I recently noticed that my computer was no longer hanging at the black
screen. I have no idea what update or other change resolved the problem.

 

[Wakazula]

Good morning.

I too am in search of an answer for the `black screen of death`. In
an attempt to discover the source of the error, I have included what I
have learned. Perhaps by process of elimination we can find a
solution to the problem.

DESCRIPTION OF ERROR
--------------------
a) turn on pc
b) bios screen appears (I can enter the bios screen if need be)
c) the Vista startup screen (with green scrolling bar) appears
d) the screen goes black and is un-responsive

It is worth noting that the computer appears to be unresponsive at
step `d`. I have not tried pressing Alt-Ctrl-Delete at this stage.
It has been my experience that our PC will run for days without issue
(sometimes weeks) and then the `black screen of death` will start
appearing. I've found that if you restart the PC and boot into safe
mode, the issue resolves itself... that is until next time.

COMPUTER SPECIFICATION
----------------------
* Windows Vista Home Premium
* Asus P5B-E motherboard
* Intel Core 2 Duo
* Radeon X1300
* PC is < 1 year old

MY OBSERVATIONS
-------------------------------
I only started experiencing this problem a couple of months ago. For
the most part, our PC is fairly static. We typically do not install
software or hardware. With that said we have recently installed:
* Microsoft wireless mouse and keyboard (via USB transmitter)
* Microsoft web cam
* replaced Samsung LCD screen with a DELL LCD screen

(please no comments about the Microsoft products, I did not choose
them)

PEOPLE HAVE SUGGESTED
--------------------------------------------
* failing motherboard
* corrupted explorer.exe
* corrupted registry
* USB controller
* NVIDIA graphics card issues
* hardware issues

TEMPORARY FIXES

 

[Wakazula]

I forgot to note:
* my PC is up-to-date with Windows Updates
* the error has occurred twice in the past week