No Video

This is not my labtop, a lady I know from a church. Here is what got me puzzled, She has a ASUS X83V labtop with Vista 64 bit OS, when booting the machine you get to a point of seeing what I call the knigh rider light, after that it goes black or blank, you see the hard drive light blinking but no video at this point. The strange point is I can boot into safe mode, everything works fine, sad part is no restore points, was thinking of an infection, but ran all the scans I could think of and then some and none is found, not even spyware or nadda. Any clues to what you think the problem is or could some how the video drivers are messed up in normal mode but not in safe mode. This is why I am scratching my head. Jimbo

Hi Jimbo, It was a smart move booting into safe mode. Well done.. as it indicates that something is loading in normal mode that is causing the loss of video. In safe mode, only a basic VGA type driver is loaded and if everything works Ok with this then the regular video driver is probably prime suspect. If Windows auto update is switched on, a recent Windows update can sometimes install the wrong video driver (as a result of Windows software incorrectly identifying the driver card/chipset installed) This can mean that a hitherto perfectly running system suddenly displays a blank screen. In safe mode with networking, (be care ful here as AV and 3rd party software firewall be not be operating) roll back and or update the video driver….. see if this works… it might just work, but if not you will need to download the correct video driver from the Asus site…it might be included within the chipset driver or it might be a separate one…….( usually separate) The absence of any System Restore Points is worrying…… most folks have the System Restore facility configured to work automatically…..if your owner has deliberately disabled this then that's OK, its their choice……..however for the ordinary user (who is not an expert user) it is recommended that it is left at default ON If they have not deliberately turned it off then it is symptomatic of deeper troubles within the operating system. If this is the case then it would be wise to start with some basic checks…..chkdsk with the r switch chkdsk /r followed by SFC ( System File Checker) sfc /scannow Let us know how you go. Regards paws

ok will do, working on it now.

The absence of any System Restore Points is worrying…… most folks have the System Restore facility configured to work automatically…..if your owner has deliberately disabled this then that's OK, its their choice……..however for the ordinary user (who is not an expert user) it is recommended that it is left at default ON – If they have not deliberately turned it off then it is symptomatic of deeper troubles within the operating system. If this is the case then it would be wise to start with some basic checks…..chkdsk with the r switch chkdsk /r – could not do this in safemode because it wanted to boot up to run scan, but while booting all i get is black screen. tryed to click on c: system prop. and again was asked to run the scan upon next boot, lol but you know the story, black screen after the Knight Rider light. followed by SFC ( System File Checker) sfc /scannow - did this one a box poped up with %, once it got to 100% the box went away did not tell me if it did anything or not. But when I let the system boot it went to the user log on screen, logged in and at the desk top atm. So at this point I turned on system restore and doing a windows update the system was way behine on updates. Will try running a chkdsk /r again now that I can see, but one question, somewhere I saw but cannot remember that doing a chkdsk you have to do it as a admin in order for it to run? in vista?.

Updated was able to get into normal mode 2 times then after that windows update was setting up, but each time it said updated was not config right and reverting changes. One point when I was in windows I amde a restore point, and tryed to get back to that point but all it does now is keeps booting back to reverting changes. Thinking as you said I think and lets give thanks to MS for a wounderful job of hosing yet another pc. But now I can no longer get back into safe mode period, I going have to hook this drive up and copy any files I can get and used a repair option to see if I can get back, if not then a recovery or if not factory restore. Will let ya know how it goes. Jimbo

Humm repair said it fixed some files and went to boot, but back to the black screen in normal mode, went into safe mode and that did ok, after trying the restore point loaded once and the 2nd time windows update thing came up and could not install or it reverts back, buts boots over and over. Somehow something got hosed during an update, took out the drive copied all files and doing a factory restore, this thing and I am starting to hate 64 bit systems. Just thought I updated ya, the system back to normal after restore and got a bit nervous because of updates, when I am seeing 32 bits and 64 bit updated gets my heart pumping and make me wounder what will happen. Jimbo

Jimbo, Can you turn off automatic restart, so that you will instead receive a BSOD if the system encounters another problem. If so, you may benefit from the additional information listed on that BSOD. Doug

Jimbo,

Can you turn off automatic restart, so that you will instead receive a BSOD if the system encounters another problem.
If so, you may benefit from the additional information listed on that BSOD.

Doug

Ahh makes sense, that way you can find out exactly what file at the time caused a problem to avoid it next time. Cool.

Start - Computer -
Right-Click - Select - Properties
Select -Advanced System Settings (from the left-hand menu listing)
From the Advanced(tab) - Select - Settings (under Startup and Recovery)
Remove the Checkmark/Tick from in front of - Automatically Restart