It's back again. First time making a post about it, though, since before I've always had system restore points to save my sorry ass - but not this time: I updated to 8.1 and POOF there they went.
Problem: Immediately after the windows 8 splash + loading circle spinny thing, I get a black screen with cursor across all three monitors (or one monitor, if I unplug the other two - doesn't really make a difference). If I let the cursor idle for about two seconds it disappears, then will reappear if I move the mouse. I can wait five or thirty minutes; it will stay black.
As I mentioned before, the only way I was able to fix this the other billion times it's happened was to system restore. The first time it happened I had to fresh install windows, which I definitely know DOES fix it, but it's also very impractical. Hard rebooting from the black screen solves nothing, as it just boots back to it. Causing a load failure boot into automatic repair (since I can't get into safe mode any other way...also how I would get to system restore, if you were wondering) and entering any of the three safe mode...modes...does nothing. The central monitor gets no input, and the other two just say "safe mode" in each corner over a black background. Keyboard input does nothing. The safe mode text flickers rapidly for the first couple of seconds after it loads, then disappears, and will reappear if I move the mouse (the cursor appearance/disappearance is the same in safe mode).
I am running 8.1 with a 280x on the most recent drivers. I have the integrated gpu disabled in device manager. There is no apparent trigger (at least that I'm aware of - perhaps background updates?) which causes these "blackouts".
For the love of all that is holy, can any of you wizards help me with my problem?
(p.s. I'm willing to spend money swapping components out to fix this. I'm not especially tech-savvy, but I always have suspicions that the iGPU is somehow behind all this. Or maybe my motherboard. Or SSD. Maybe even my windows installation? Last time I fresh installed windows I used a CD I burned from back during the $15 upgrade promo; but, then again, I always figured that windows updates - and especially having recently upgraded to windows 8.1 - made your install source irrelevant.)
UPDATE: I left it on the black screen for 45 minutes and it gave me a login screen. Not sure what to make of it, but I'm not going to shut it off to test it again just in case one of you suggests something that I need the computer on for.
Problem: Immediately after the windows 8 splash + loading circle spinny thing, I get a black screen with cursor across all three monitors (or one monitor, if I unplug the other two - doesn't really make a difference). If I let the cursor idle for about two seconds it disappears, then will reappear if I move the mouse. I can wait five or thirty minutes; it will stay black.
As I mentioned before, the only way I was able to fix this the other billion times it's happened was to system restore. The first time it happened I had to fresh install windows, which I definitely know DOES fix it, but it's also very impractical. Hard rebooting from the black screen solves nothing, as it just boots back to it. Causing a load failure boot into automatic repair (since I can't get into safe mode any other way...also how I would get to system restore, if you were wondering) and entering any of the three safe mode...modes...does nothing. The central monitor gets no input, and the other two just say "safe mode" in each corner over a black background. Keyboard input does nothing. The safe mode text flickers rapidly for the first couple of seconds after it loads, then disappears, and will reappear if I move the mouse (the cursor appearance/disappearance is the same in safe mode).
I am running 8.1 with a 280x on the most recent drivers. I have the integrated gpu disabled in device manager. There is no apparent trigger (at least that I'm aware of - perhaps background updates?) which causes these "blackouts".
For the love of all that is holy, can any of you wizards help me with my problem?
(p.s. I'm willing to spend money swapping components out to fix this. I'm not especially tech-savvy, but I always have suspicions that the iGPU is somehow behind all this. Or maybe my motherboard. Or SSD. Maybe even my windows installation? Last time I fresh installed windows I used a CD I burned from back during the $15 upgrade promo; but, then again, I always figured that windows updates - and especially having recently upgraded to windows 8.1 - made your install source irrelevant.)
UPDATE: I left it on the black screen for 45 minutes and it gave me a login screen. Not sure what to make of it, but I'm not going to shut it off to test it again just in case one of you suggests something that I need the computer on for.
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My Computer
System One
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- OS
- Windows 8.1