Free Computer Help By Mitz
Rarely do I come across a problem with a computer that I cannot diagnose, however getting a black screen on boot can stump me sometimes. I always try to trouble shoot the problem manually, without using those fancy programs, because I believe it is the only way to learn.
There are two types of black screens that can appear. One that will have a beep sequence sounding to let you know what the problem could be, and the other has nothing at all. No beeps, no cursor, no logo screen, and no choice to boot to safe mode or access the bios.
If you get a beep sequence, I am not saying it is good news, however it is a step in the right direction towards solving this problem. This is a message from your computer that can be understood by looking up your bios (the brand) beep code. For example you may have an Award Bios, Ami Bios, Phoenix BIOS, compaq, Dell, or Acer Bios. This list goes on and on. You can search for Bios beep codes in google. Here is an example of results in google search Search results for “bios beep codes”
If you heard a single beep, then the computer posted, and the CPU is ok. POST= Power On Self Test A procedure the computer goes through on starting to ensure all is well.
When you get the black screen, and absolutely nothing else, this is where the challenge begins. Sometimes the fans and the cpu seems to be running.
When this happens to me, I have an instant advantage as I have a replacement part for basically any computer component at my fingertips.
Common things that can happen when your computer has a black screen:
- At boot up, it sound like it is booting as the cpu fan is running and the lights are on. It also finds the cd rom but it won’t boot from a cd either.
- Sometimes it will boot to a black screen and the power switch light will be green and then turns to orange or amber. Everything is running.
- Everything seems to be running but you can’t see anything on the screen, not even a flashing cursor.
Some common causes for a computer to have a black screen at bootup:
Where is your Monitor plugged in?
The first and most obvious reason for a computer appearing to run but you cannot see the video is the monitor. A common mistake is to plug the monitor into the onboard video plug when you actually have a PCI or AGP video card installed. Trust me I have done this myself. Simply move the plug to the correct position.
Failing Display adapter or video card can cause a black screen:
Most of the time you can tell if your computer video card is deteriorating by seeing little tell tale signs. Lines appearing or flashing can sometimes occur, however sometimes nothing happens at all. You might turn your computer on and have the dreaded black screen. You can try removing your video card and using onboard video, or replacing the video card to see if that is the problem.
The next reason is RAM…or memory: This can cause a black screen on your computer.
If your memory is not seated properly (not in), is damaged, or even absent altogether, this can cause major problems.
- If you have no memory installed at all, some computers make no sounds and just show a black screen. Other computers go crazy and beep their head off. I am an expert at this one, as I build so my computers.
- When your computer gets a black screen only sometimes, it usually means your ram is on the way out..For example if you boot your computer and it doesn’t work, then go back an hour later, and it does work, your memory is playing up. You can try taking the ram out, gently cleaning it with an antistatic cloth, and replacing it. This may solve your problem. If it does not, then you should try running your computer with another compatible stick of ram installed.
If you plan to open your computer case and remove the ram please read these articles How to open a computer case safely and Upgrade Memory
Installing new hardware
Often when computer users install hardware in order to upgrade their own computers they run into problems. If you have just performed an upgrade and then get a black screen, the answer is obvious. Some hardware components may not be compatible with the others in your system. And of course there is always the risk of static electricity damaging your components when you are not an experienced computer repair person.
Leaving a bootable usb flash drive connected to your computer.
Yes this can confuse your computer and it won’t know where to boot up. I have had a black screen from doing this and have realised and removed the usb and the computer just continues to boot normally..
Corrupting the Boot Sector.
I have learnt this lesson the hard way. Never turn off the computer when it is half way through the boot procedure. Even when it is taking forever, or having a major problem you must let it run through if possible. Interrupting it once may be ok, but twice or three times is a no no. After you have carelessly restarted and shutdown a few times the black screen may appear. But this time it may be beyond repair for the average computer user. How to repair a damaged boot sector by replacing the master boot record (MBR) in Windows XP
Your CPU is not correctly seated.
After transporting a computer from one house to another, this is the first place I look. Transporting a working computer, and then not working with a black screen = dislodging the CPU. You can fix this easily by removing the CPU fan and carefully replacing it back in its spot. You may also have to replace some thermal paste between the cpu and heat sink as it stops the cpu from overheating.
Keyboard Faulty
This one surprised me because when there is a problem with the keyboard the computer still boots and says that there is no keyboard detected on the screen. Well this didn’t happen for me. I had a keyboard with a bent pin on the cable, so when it was plugged into the computer, it just plugged in normally. Then the computer had a black screen, you could here it starting up but no posting beeps, no display, nothing. I even swapped monitors around until finally I tested the keyboard and found the bent pin. I never thought to look there because of the usual default message that appears on the screen when there is something wrong with your keyboard.
Notes relating to your computer having a black screen:
- If your computer has black screen but you can see one small flashing cursor, I see this as a good sign! It usually means your computer is ok to be formatted. It can also mean that you should try to repair the boot sector first. How to repair a damaged boot sector by replacing the master boot record (MBR) in Windows XP
- Lets face it.. Having a black screen is a common symptom for so many problems.
Hey,
my computer yesterday just completely froze while i was doing a virus check, because my virus protector popped up saying a major threat occured
I had to turn it off by the on/off button and now when i try to turn it on the fan and the lights all work but the screen is black and no cursor or anything.
i dont know what to do!!! HELP!
Apologies for this late response. Blame limited computer access and the like. As for the question you posed, the answer is no. There was no burning smell when this occurred, although the laptop did seem to overheat for a bit. No smell, though.
Hi katiee
What virus checker are you using?
Do you have an operating system disc. I would try that first. Instructions are above. After that (if that’s not working) I would take it to a pro. If you are willing to play with yourself though…I would remove the hard drive and put it in an external case and check if it is still ok?
Heya, i got something pretty interesting for you peeps. So here’s the deal: i was doing some lousy programming in Pascal (i know, great coding aint it? *rolling eyes*) and i would have some black screens every now and then but not completely black, just from the program, he was inverting colors or something, anyway yesterday they got inverted again, then my pc froze. Restarted (actually i had to unplug the power since restart didnt work) => monitor didnt get any signal and the pc wouldnt boot or something like that. Also the DVD-ROM couldnt be opened and the “thinking” red light that indicates the processor is doing stuff was constantly on. I cant recall if i heard any beeps either. Ofc i tried to swap monitors, wasnt from that.
So….any clues whats wrong?
I started to get the black screen after getting my power unit replaced. Did’nt have a problem before then. I can get it to boot up now about 10% of the time by removing and then resetting the memory cards. When winxp is up and running applications tend to run slowly though.
I’ve run my a/v and have cleaned up the registry but it did not help.
hi Rahamatata
My first thought is display, video card, or monitor. Have you tested any of these? Also how long was the light red for….did it stop. Was the computer loaded at the time or was it just a red light to the cd drive.
Hi Sij
I missed your question:
Ouch that sucks…Quick question??? Is there a flashing cursor on your screen? You can try putting the operating cd in the drive and maybe doing a repair by starting from the cd.. If you can’t get into bios, hopefully it is set to start from a cd.
I get this message on a black screen and the screen freezes on these text: 0xc01a001d !! 28063/86745 (\Registry\Machine\COMPONENTS\DerivedData. What do you recommend?
hello mitz
yes at first i thought the monitor broken, swaped it with another one and same issue was occuring, then i thought video card, but the red light wouldnt stop and the pc didnt beeped when i restarted, which lead me to either processor or ram or some chipset on the motherboard. this evening i replaced every component with some from another pc of mine, except video card and ofc motherboard; i tried to boot it up without the video card installed, thus no monitor either, just to see if it beeps or the red light (from processor) stops, and it didnt so i suppose….its from the shitty motherboard i have : /
Hi Rosario
Do you have Windows Vista?
Did you recently update or install any programs?
Hello Mitz,
Thanks for looking into my problem and your response.
My computer seems OK now – strange I know. It seemed to fix itself, albeit with a little help from me too. Just to answer your question, there wasn’t a cursor flashing when I had the problem and it wasn’t set to boot from cd-rom first. I tried a boot up cd but nothing happened.
What I decided to do is get inside the unit, remove all components and reinstall them. It didn’t work first time but after a little waiting it came to life. The only problem I have now is that it seems unstable – as in everytime I boot up I get a feeling that it won’t work – that actually happened again for a bit yesterday!
Hi Sij
It sounds though you are in your computer but there might be a hardware problem…If you look in the article above…I would start with the ram being faulty..only because you have replaced all the components and now it works for a minute…
Thanks Mitz.
Do you mean I should replace the ram completely? I’ve 2 x 1gb rams. I did have a feeling something went wrong with the ram so I swapped them with eachother – don’t know if that does anything…!
Sij
I would remove one stick and see how it goes…be careful because of static electricity and all that….See the links above for doing this safely…It will boot up slower with one stick but check it out…It may not boot at all…If not swap the ram and try the other.
Hi! I was just playing an RPG game (Maplestory) in my Dell laptop when all of a sudden various red vertical stripes appeared and froze my screen. I couldn’t do anything but to shut it down manually (holding down the power button). After turning it on again, I could barely see the Windows logo as it loaded, then nothing but a black screen. Every time I turn it on again I just see a black screen. I left the sound on and as it seems, the laptop works because I typed in my password and I heard that Windows account initiating sound and could restart it by using the keyboard. What do you think the problem is?
Thanks in advantage for your help!
After transporting my PC from one place to another, my PC works well for the first few days. Until one day, my PC suddenly black out and I heard noises coming out from my PC. The sound is kinda like when a DVD is inserted into the DVD ROM, buzzing sound. Then I press the power button but my PC won’t start anymore. No boot screen, no beep sound and blank screen. I tried to change my RAM with another working RAM but the problems still exist. Then I realize the hard disk is broken because when I plug the hard disk into USB to SATA/IDE cable, I heard some clicking noise coming out from the harddisk. So I plug in a working hard disk into my PC but it stills come out with blank screen. No bios, no beep sound. Please help as I am now stuck with a broken PC. Thanks.
Its an old PC with 1GB RAM, 40HDD, build-in graphic card and MSI motherboard (I forgot the model and the PC is not with me right now.)
Hello, I just recently got the black screen, approx 2days from now. I can’t seem to figure out the problem, I remember my Norton Anti Virus said there was issues that got resolved as far as malware/virus go. And anyways when I startup everything is normal I see a black screen and little white horizontal lines flicker a bit, but the my cursor is available and I open up Task Manager and I am able to open up Internet, so I am typing this message right now on my Black Screen of Death computer. Please let me know what further actions I can take to help solve this, I really don’t want to resort to restoring my computer.
Hi there Thaddeus
I would try this:
You can use your Windows discs to possibly fix this.
Put your windows XP CD into the cd rom drive.
Go to the atart menu. Choose run.
Type in sfc /scannow
Thats if you have xp…it will scan for errors and restore the right files… Also you could try installing a new driver for your display options…
and….I do not think a system restore will help but a full format will..
Hi Enrique
It sounds like your display has gone…This would not be a home do it yourself job as it is a delicate job to do..
i’ve gotten the black screen before and i just restarted a few hours later and it works
but now it won’t anymore
i get the black screen with nothing at all
what should i do ?
Hi selina
I think the first black screen was the warning that there was something wrong. You could try some of the steps mentioned above or take the computer to a pro.
Note for everyone: Just remember the safety aspects of opening a computer case. I would rather people experiment and an old cheap computer than their $2,000 baby..(that’s a computer) Just a quick warning. If you are willing to risk mistakes and not blame yourself then I say go for it…How are you going to learn when you are not game to do anything? If you do not want to know anything about computers and have enough money, take it to a pro…
Mitz,
I’m a tech myself with a little less than a year exp. I use google a lot and read forums for help then whack myself in the head because i usually know how to solve the problem in the first place. However; I recently gutted my desktop and bought all new hardware for it, and built it up to start a gaming PC. Everything was going fine. About a few months later whenever I would try to simply hit the power button to start the machine all the LED lights would go on as usual but I would just get a black screen, but I could simply shut the power supply off and on again, and after the 3rd or 4th time it would start. I have never learned anything about troubleshooting a black screen with no code or beeps from the motherboard. I was furious when it finally wouldn’t start anymore no matter how many times I tried. I came across your article after wording my problem differently a bunch of times in google, and could not be happier. Matter of fact I have never posted anything ever in a forum because it’s mostly a waste of time. You my friend have made me a happy man and for that I thank you, as I now have a place to start troubleshooting my black screen. But there is a huge possibility that I may have damaged my motherboard or CPU permanently because of starting it and shutting it down so many times. Also if you have any advice for me I would appreciate it.
Huge fan,
Jim
Hi Jim nice to have you here…
I have had a similar problem. I used to have a computer that sometimes started and sometime did not (seemed to start). I seemed to just think it was the started button as I was kind of not pressing it in properly. If I made sure I pressed the button straight in and not on an angle I could guarantee it would start ok. I know this sounds just too simple to be true but I swear that was it.
Anyway since your computer is not starting at all now and I guess you would have tried most things..I would take the hard drive out…replace it…format…if you can…and see if the problem remains. If you get a working computer but the starting problem is still there, then you have a chance to troubleshoot the problem…
Computers can do weird things…and get black screens for any reason at all…You should have seen me when I was troubleshooting a black screen and found out after hours of work that it was the keyboard plug with a bent pin. I just presumed the computer would start up and tell me there was no keyboard present…which it is meant to do…but no…that would be too easy and obvious.