Black screen after boot

[m0rv4i]

Hi,

My PC was working fine yesterday, but today after the BIOS splash screen (ASUS, press F12 for BIOS settings etc) I just get a black screen - nothing else. No blinking cursor, no OS screen, no error messages - nothing.

The keyboard and mouse come on (they're backlit) but don't seem to respond to capslock/numlock keys, and I can't seem to enter the BIOS settings.

I tried putting in a linux live CD to boot from, but no difference. It's also worth noting that the above BIOS splash screen seem to be up for longer than usual.

Any help at all would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

 

[DRagor]

Can you get to BIOS settings? Check there if BIOS still sees all drives.

 

[SgtScream]

Can you get into the bios and can you boot your computer into safe mode? If so the issue is software. Check to see if a recent windows update was installed.

 

[m0rv4i]

Hey, so I spent most of last night on this and eventually fixed it - thank you for the replies.

While I'm not sure what the exact issue was I'll detail the exact symptoms and steps in case anyone else experiences the same issue.

The BIOS splash screen was showing for longer than usual, and then the screen was just black with nothing showing - the keyboard was backlit and on but was not responding to caps lock/numlock etc and I could not get into the BIOS settings.

I was still getting the POST beep however, and none of the POST indicator LEDs were on on the motherboard. I then started removing components, starting with my two GPUs which made no difference aside from it would now not get past the splash screen at all - it would just stay on it.

Next I reset the CMOS but removing the motherboard battery for 5 minutes and this seems to be the core of the fix. After this, I was forced to enter the BIOS setup screen but more importantly I could, as the keyboard was now responding.

The boot devices were a bit backwards and I was trying to boot off an old HD with grub on it which confused me for a short time, but once I'd set that up correctly I successfully got into windows!

I then started putting the components back in, but on what I expect is a side note caused by a short or something, when I added the final GPU the computer just wouldn't start at all - the power button did nothing. No fan twitch or anything. The motherboard standby LED was showing so it was getting power, so I re-removed everything but it didn't change anything.

I eventually noticed that when I was turning off the PSU the standby LED was staying on, so I turned it off and left it for 10 minutes and I came back to it actually off. At this point when I turned the PSU back on and hit start it worked, and after adding all the components back in my computer is back to its original, working state. My guess here is I caused a short somewhere and I had to let everything fully discharge before it worked again, so I expect it has nothing to do with the original problem.

Thanks again for your help!