No Video; Must Hard Restart

[BurntBread]

Hi, my Dad's been home for the past two days earlier than me for the long weekend of Veteran's day that I don't get off. He says he comes home and turns on the computer. However, there is never any video. The monitor turns on fine.

From there, he holds the power button to hard shut down the system. He then turns the power back on. The video works and he says the "Improper Shutdown" screen comes up. On Monday he did the scan and found nothing. Today he started Windows normally after the initial hard shutdown.

Does anybody know what is wrong? I had this problem before and it was a bad hard drive. I used Western Digital's diagnostic and the drive failed. This time, however, it says the hard drive passes... What else could be the issue? Could it be the power supply? Thanks.

 

[BurntBread]

Hello everybody, today I was able to witness the issue for myself. The screen goes black right after the Windows logo. Today was really bad, I had to restart around 4 times before it would work. I'm using Windows 7 64 bit.

I'm thinking its a HDD issue. Should I reinstall the OS or might it be a physical problem?

 

[BurntBread]

Nobody? Please?

I clean installed but I still have the same problem. I had a similiar issue to this back in 2010, and it was the hard drive. I am going to advance RMA the hard drive if nobody has any tips. Thanks.

Edit: Safe mode has always worked too. System restore did nothing. I tried disabling everything on startup just incase there was a program conflict. No luck.

 

[alexoiu]

Hi, Is it the same if you start with only one RAM stick installed?

 

[BurntBread]

Thank you so much for replying.

One RAM stick? I have 4 total right now for 8GB. Just take out the other 3? What will this show? Thanks!

Edit: Sorry if I don't reply right away, my Dad will be on the PC soon.

 

[alexoiu]

Yes, take out 3 (with the power supply off) and leave only one stick installed. Then power supply on and start the PC.

 

[BurntBread]

I will try this tomorrow and update. I want to try every stick. I really have to do some college application stuff right now though. Thanks.

 

[BurntBread]

Hi, just did this and am really confused. I used the same slot:

Stick 1:
- Try 1: Works.
- Try 2: Restart PC. Works

Stick 2:
- Try 1: Works
- Try 2: Restart PC. Works

Stick 3:
- Try 1: Works.
- Try 2: Restart PC. Black screen for 30 seconds and then comes up.
- Try 3. Shut off power supply. Turn on power supply. Boot up. Works
- Try 4: Restart PC. Black screen for a minute and then comes up.

Stick 4:
- Try 1: Black screen. Does not work.
- Try 2: Black screen. Does not work.

At this point, I tried Stick 1 and 2 together.
- Try 1: Works.
- Try 2: ... Black screen for 4 minutes and then works.

I remember on Sunday I was having problems with Dota 2. I tried to launch it 3 times and it kept crashing my display drivers. Nvidia GTX 295.

 

[alexoiu]

At this point I would leave only the Stick 1 installed and test for few days. Try also clearing the CMOS (unplug the power cord and remove the CMOS battery for few minutes).
It might also be a graphics card issue. Can you test with a different one installed?

 

[BurntBread]

Sorry, I should have clarified before. The black screen means that not even the monitor's back light comes on. The power button flashes on and off like the computer is not even turned on.

My friend said he could lend me his very old card tomorrow. Once I leave only stick 1 installed and try clearing the CMOS, is there anything I should look for?

 

[BurntBread]

It's happening again. I reinstalled Windows 7 and everything was working fine but now I have the same problem. Computer boots, I see the Starting Windows screen, back screen no mouse no nothing. Monitor is completely lit off and the power button flashes as though the computer is not on.