Black Screen after Starting Up

**Timbuk2**

I'm having a difficulty when starting Windows 7.

When it is booting up, I can see the initial Pentium logo, and then the Bios text, but often when it gets to "Starting Windows", the screen will go completely black, yet Windows will still be loading away in the background. Occasionally it can happen that I start the computer and go away for a minute or two, and when I come back, it is sitting idle on the desktop, but if I press a button on the mouse or a key on the keyboard, the screen will go black again.

The light on the monitor stays green while this is happening (i.e., the monitor isn't shutting off). I can't, however, bring up the menu controls to see what frequency it is at. Very interestingly though, if I turn the screen off (using the power button) and turn it back on, I can see a glimpse of the desktop for about 2 seconds, before it goes black again.

This used to work perfectly, until we were moving the computer, so I had to disconnect everything, move it into a different room and reconnect everything - and now I am getting this problem. Sometimes it does work eventually (like now), but usually only after I turn it off (The improper way, by holding the power button) and click on "Start Windows Normally" (in the Do you want to start in Safe Mode? menu) very quickly, before it goes black.

I have checked the VGA Monitor Cable - it is not loose, none of the pins appear to be bent and it looks fine. No new hardware was added since we moved the computer, with exception to new speakers.

If anyone has any ideas, I'd be grateful. I'll try locate a different screen to try, so I can narrow it down to whether the problem is the screen, or the video card, or something else.

Medion MD8800
Windows 7 Ultimate 32bit
nVidia 6700xl Graphics Card
Pentium D 3.00Ghz
1.0GB RAM

Thanks.

practice

Have you checked that graphics card has not become loose.

wil

I'd reseat the RAM chips also. Loose RAM gives unpredictable results.
Boot to the bios first and see is monitor staying on.
Then boot to safe mode.

Check monitor with DVI out.

Its a Medion - that has AV out, any chance it is switched to av out only.
Had that problem with an ATI AIW until I plugged it into the TV and then was able reset video back to monitor not TV.
Very annoying when it happened as it did occasionally as I had a dual ouput profile that defaulted to TV only if monitor wasnt plugged in.

**Timbuk2**

Thanks for the answers - I'll have to wait until tomorrow morning to try re-seating those things.

However, I'm thinking the problem is the screen. I had the computer on, was using it, left for about 40 minutes and then came back and the computer had gone on standby/powersaving - I woke it up, and the black screen thing happened again. I could see the desktop for about 1-2 seconds by turning the screen on and off, but it kept flicking back to the desktop.
I unplugged the VGA cable from the back of the monitor (while the computer was on), and then No Signal appeared on the screen, but flicked to black screen. If I turned the monitor on and off, No Signal appeared up but disappeared, just as was happening when Windows was running (remember, it wasn't connected to the computer).

I plugged back in the VGA cable, and low and behold, the desktop had come back on the monitor, and stayed there. Sounds like the monitor, no? I'll get another one tomorrow and test it.

However, earlier on today, this had happened again. I tried flicking on and off the monitor as usual, but instead of flicking on for only 2 seconds, it remained on - but the resolution had changed itself from 1280x1024 to 1024x764 - at first I thought it might have booted into Safe Mode (as I couldn't see the start-up!), but it let me change it back to 1280x1024 without difficulties and I had a full range of colours. Which makes it sound like it's the video card, and not the screen.

It might be worth noting that both the monitor and the computer have DVI ports, I'm just not sure if I have a DVI cable, and if this would make any difference at all!

**Timbuk2**

Update: I switched monitors to another (smaller) LCD monitor and the problem has now gone away! So this means that the old monitor is probably broken, which is a shame!