Vista black screen on log in
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...
Re: Vista black screen on log in
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.
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.
RE: Vista black screen on log in
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.
Re: Vista black screen on log in
I too had similar problem on my laptop, blank screen in vista on boot up
and no image on external crt either, exhausted all my options including
fresh installation. Problem was pinpointed to video chip fault by
technomart. Seems can be caused by overheating at some point or dropped.
Hope this helps.