Friend black screens after updating motherboard BIOS and installing graphics card drivers

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Badger_dude

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Sorry, I don't know which category this should go under, (Display, motherboard, or graphics card) so i'll just put it here.

Whenever he tries to install new gpu drivers the system just black screens. He will wait 30 minutes and then restart the computer. The Windows logo will show up, but nothing else will happen. He has to then start Windows in safe mode and go from there. When he installed the drivers from safe mode, for some reason it worked fine. But when he went back to normal mode everything was fucked up and we had to system restore.

The same thing happened to him while upgrading the motherboard bios, except the display worked after he restarted but it wouldn't let him upgrade to the absolute latest version. It was trying to upgrade from 1.9 to 2.0 but it would go back to 1.9 after the system was reset.

Any help is absolutely greatly appreciated. Is this an issue with the motherboard? The GPU? His display?

His specs:

Intel Pentium G3258 (Stock)
Gigabyte R9 290
ASRock H97M Pro4 LGA1150
 
Solution
MarkW
Download Display Driver Uninstaller (click link below to get to download page). Run it. It will ask if can go into Safe Mode. Select Yes. It will restart the system, and go into Safe Mode. It will then offer you 3 choices. Select the top choice that says "Recommended". When it is done, install the latest video drivers for his video card. Restart the computer.

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MarkW

MarkW

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Download Display Driver Uninstaller (click link below to get to download page). Run it. It will ask if can go into Safe Mode. Select Yes. It will restart the system, and go into Safe Mode. It will then offer you 3 choices. Select the top choice that says "Recommended". When it is done, install the latest video drivers for his video card. Restart the computer.

 
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Badger_dude

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He clicked the recommended, and then his screen turned black and nothing else happened. Nothing will display, but audio is still playing.
 
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Badger_dude

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Yes, we have. We had to system restore because we couldn't see anything on the tv... We've downloaded TeamViewer to see what the computer is "displaying" when we can't see it.
 
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Badger_dude

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When he goes to safe mode now, the video works, but it will black screen when it's back to normal mode. Do you have any idea what could be causing this issue? The motherboard, the graphics card?
 
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MarkW

MarkW

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Swap out the cable. Use a different cable.
Make sure the Video Card is firmly inserted into the PCIe slot.
Make sure the power cable(s) are firmly inserted into the sockets on the Video Card.
Make sure the 8 pin motherboard power cable (the big fat cable) is firmly inserted into its socket.
Check the temperature of the GPU. Make sure its not overheating to cause the black screen.
Try swapping the monitors.

It is pretty clear to me that if TeamViewer is showing an image, that the video card is working. The signal though is not making it to the monitor for some reason. Or there is a problem with the monitor itself.
 
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Badger_dude

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We tried different HDMI cords several times.
The GPU appears to be inserted correctly (however I really can't confirm that since my friend lives in Florida and i live in Wisconsin) He sent me this picture.
http://imgur.com/6geLaqP

We've tried switching to a new TV, and that didn't change anything.

The bulky 24 pin connector doesn't plug in all the way, but I had the same issue with my computer so I don't find this very concerning.

He sent me this picture of the cables inserted to his video card, they look firmly inserted to me.
http://imgur.com/srAq9Lr[/img]
He told me his graphics card is outputting next to no heat.

So, now what?

Also, after installing the drivers, while using teamviewer i could set the refresh rate at 30 or 29 hertz interlaced. wtf?
 
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MarkW

MarkW

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Small world this is... I'm in Green Bay. :)

First thing I need to know what power supply he has. Brand, model and capacity.
Second, are all these parts new or used?
Has the system ever had video on the monitor? Even if it was only text, has anything ever shown up on it?

Send the above info first... Then have him try the things below. I'll try to figure out whats going on when I get up in the morning.

Have him go into the BIOS, and first I want him to go to the Exit/Save page, and find the Restore Default Settings option, and click on that. Then Save and exit. See if the system will give him video then.

If not, have him restart again, and go back into the BIOS, and have him look for an option to select where the GPU source is, and set it to PCIe. And save and exit. And let the system boot again and see what happens.

As far as what is causing it could be lot of things. But what is driving me nuts about this is that the video card is generating the video that TeamViewer is showing you. So why is it not getting to the monitor. I wish I had a way to test the monitor itself. But since we seem to know that the video card is producing the image, we know the rest of the system is working. In fact, it seems everything up to the video cable is working, but there is nothing on the monitor.

 
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Badger_dude

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What?! Green Bay? I live in De Pere, that's crazy.

EVGA 110-B2-0750-VR 80 PLUS Bronze 750 WATT
Stuff has showed up on the monitor all the time before we install the drivers. The one thing causing every single issue here is the moment drivers are installed.
All his parts were bought new.

I'll tell him to do those things when he decides to wake up.
 
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MarkW

MarkW

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OK... You can stop tossing those pebbles at my window! :p

I am sitting here trying to figure out how installing video drivers is stopping a video signal from going to a monitor that works fine without video drivers. And I am only coming up with one idea. That the video card is going to a resolution that the monitor cannot support. Find out what the brand and model of monitor he has. I want to look it up and see what it supports and doesn't support. Also what port is he using to connect the monitor to the video card.

I am almost wondering if the video cable that he is using might not be cable of carrying the signal once the driver is installed and the resolution jumps up...

Has he ever installed some third party utility programs for a video card?

It might be a defective video card too.

You seem to know more about things than your friend does. I want you to have you and your friend install TeamViewer so that you can remotely control your friends computer. I want you to be able to see what they are seeing. It might well help you two figure out what is going on. I have never used this, but someone with a similar problem is using it to see what the system is displaying when the monitor goes black.

https://www.teamviewer.com/en/download/windows.aspx

Whatever it is, it is a mind blower.
 
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Badger_dude

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I've already been using TeamViewer lol. I would use it to install his GPU driver and then try changing resolution and stuff afterwards hoping that it would magically display stuff to his TV while he can't see anything but i can. The only solution is to go into safe mode and restore from there. If he isn't in safe mode when it restores, nothing will show up. he is using the HDMI port on his graphics card, not the motherboard, and plugging it into his tv. he doesn't have any DVI or DisplayPort cords to test the other ones with.
I will also ask him what the model number of his tv is, but i asked him before and he couldn't find it :C
 
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MarkW

MarkW

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Wow! Remind me never to buy a Sharp TV. It says it supports 720p.. but never says at what refresh rate, I have to assume that this is TV refresh rates only, which would be between 24 and 30 FPS. There are no "Display Drivers" files to download, and there are no BIOS updates to download. So that is going to make Windows treat the TV like some generic pnp monitor.

I want you to boot his system up. When you get to the desktop, I want you to right click the desktop, select Screen Resolution. Next window, look at the resolution, if it is higher than 1366x768 reduce it to that or 1280×720. Then in the lower left, click Advanced Settings, and on the next window, click on Show All Settings button.

Every single resolution @ every color depth @ every refresh rate that Windows thinks that TV can do should be listed there. Select something that is no higher than 1366x768, and again, if that is not available, select 1280×720. You want 32 bit color, and refresh rate of 30. Then click OK, APPLY, OK and OK.

If that does not work, go back into that, and see if there is a refresh rate of 24 available.

Also, tell me what Windows is calling his TV... that might answer some of my questions as well.

This must have something to do with resolution and/or refresh rates. I don't know exactly what, but something is changing one or both of those, and its exceeding something the TV is capable of doing.
 
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Badger_dude

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Oh my god, it really was our TV all along! My friend tried a 3rd tv to hook it up to and it finally worked, allowing us to install the video drivers with no issues. I appreciate you trying to help with the TV and display settings and whatnot, but when his mother found out his tv was the problem, she said she was gonna take him to Best Buy or Walmart and get him a good new 1080p tv.

Windows called his TV a generic pnp monitor, same as mine! My TV is freaking stupid, its aspect ration is 85:48, wtf? xD
Also, it only let me change to 30 or 29 hertz interlaced on his tv, which sounds absolutely awful.

Well at least we know the computer is working fine, thank you for the help. If it weren't for you, we would have ran out of ideas and just returned all of the parts and bought a prebuilt computer.
 
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MarkW

MarkW

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When you get the Generic PnP Monitor designation, Windows has been unable to figure out what the display is, and makes assumptions, which sometimes work well, and sometimes... well... they don't. The 85:48 ratio is definitely a weird one though. You would think by now they would know that it should be 16:9 or maybe 21:9 like mine. But there are reasons why so many of us still spend the money on a monitor instead of a TV.

Playing around... 16 * 5.3125 = 85 and 9 * 5.333 = 48... So that is very close to being a 16:9 ratio. Someone in China probably didn't do their math right.

In any case, glad his mom bought that monitor for him. We might have never actually resolved that if she had not done that. That is one of the freakier problems I have seen here, but I was definitely on the right track. But I was on the right track because TeamViewer was working, which told me that the video card was working. So it was because of you getting that going that I was able to figure that out. So thank you for the help. I will remember Teamviewer and use it again in the future.

And the pack caged up some bears today, so its been a very good day! :ROFL:
 
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