Desktop flickers, has no icons, only shows Windows icon.

[Knightmare25]

This happens in safe mode too. This happened after I updated Windows. Task Manager doesn't flicker. Tried disabling Problem Report and Windows Error in Start Up. Still doing it.

 

[kaptainkuftic]

Could be a lot of things going from PSU not supplying enough power to your graphics, to your hard drive beginning to fail, to some odd corruption in the OS. Are you able to get it back to the desktop?

 

[Knightmare25]

It's weird. When the desktop flickers, for about a second my icons appear, then disappear, then it just goes back to flickering without any icons. Like I said, this just stared happening after I updated Windows. I can take a video and show you guys.

 

[kaptainkuftic]

First thing I would try is using a recovery flash drive to repair your OS. That, or hit the windows button, type cmd, and type 'wmic diskdrive get status' to see if your HDD is on the verge of giving up.

 

[Knightmare25]

Here's a video:

https://youtu.be/FGEyoXl_BVg

 

[Knightmare25]

Says my disk drive status is ok.

 

[kaptainkuftic]

Says my disk drive status is ok.

I would do the repair then.

If that doesn't do anything, it's time to start testing with extra parts.

 

[Knightmare25]

How do I do a recovery flash? Keep in mind I can't click any icons and can only do things from task manager.

 

[kaptainkuftic]

How do I do a recovery flash? Keep in mind I can't click any icons and can only do things from task manager.

A flash drive with Windows 10 recovery media on it. You'll need a 4GB flash drive for it, and I guess a different PC.

here's a how-to: https://www.howtogeek.com/131907/how-to-create-and-use-a-recovery-drive-or-system-repair-disc-in-windows-8/

 

[Knightmare25]

What exactly would this do?

 

[kaptainkuftic]

What exactly would this do?

Well, hopefully a few things. If you repair, it'll redownload and reinstall anything that got corrupted or was missing from that update. If you reset your PC, you can choose to keep all of your files (and settings I think?) and reinstall windows from scratch, again keeping those files.

And the more important reason, if that doesn't work, then the issue is either something fairly obvious I'm missing, or it's a hardware issue. I'll check your video when I get home from work, to make sure, but hopefully it's not some hardware problem.

 

[Knightmare25]

Just as long as my files aren't formatted. I mean I don't particularly mind if it did, I just don't feel like redownloading everything.

 

[kaptainkuftic]

Just as long as my files aren't formatted. I mean I don't particularly mind if it did, I just don't feel like redownloading everything.

for the record, you should be backing everything important up to make sure you aren't blindsided by this kind of thing.

That being said, there's an option for 'keep all of my files' or something to that effect. so if you see that, you should be fine. again, back your shit up though

 

[Knightmare25]

Just need to buy a 4gb flash drive. Only have a 2gb one.

 

[Knightmare25]

Wasn't able to do anything with the recovery flash drive.

 

[Knightmare25]

So I was able to back up my files on a USB by going to task manager, run new task, explorer.exe, and dragging the files to the USB. Going to format my PC now. Hopefully that fixes it. If not, it's a hardware issue.