Question [SOLVED] My Computer Goes Nearly Black After Motherboard Splashscreen

[jayclock]

I went through the process of cleaning my very dusty computer yesterday. I used air duster for most of the computer and detached and reattached the heatsink to get a deeper clean of it. When I turned my computer back on, I got a brief BIOS loading screen and the motherboard splashscreen before it went nearly to black, only with a little gray underscore character in the top right. Any ideas as to what's going wrong here? Maybe which part the issue could be narrowed down to? There's the possibility that I might have not been careful enough with grounding and the air duster while cleaning the computer.
Specs:
Power Supply: EVGA 500B
Video Card: Radeon R9 270X
Motherboard: msi 760 GMA-P34(FX)
CPU: AMD FX 8320
Hard Drive: Seagate ST1000DM003

 

[jay32267]

I have had that flashing cursor issue.....and what fixed it was....resetting the CMOS.
Although I'm not sure if the cause of mine is the same as the cause of yours.....but it's worth a try.

 

[jayclock]

I have had that flashing cursor issue.....and what fixed it was....resetting the CMOS.
Although I'm not sure if the cause of mine is the same as the cause of yours.....but it's worth a try.

That worked! Thanks so much! Would you happen to know what I could've done to make my motherboard behave like that while I was cleaning my computer?

 

[jay32267]

That worked! Thanks so much! Would you happen to know what I could've done to make my motherboard behave like that while I was cleaning my computer?

You're welcome!

as far as what caused that.....no idea.

....but I'd recommend two things....
I wouldn't get real crazy with cleaning.
I work on lots of old PCs for a living and I don't think they need to be cleaned as much as some people do.
....and next time....don't remove the heat sink.....just blow out the case.....that's all I ever do and I don't have problems.
....just keep the air source far enough away so you don't damage things.

 

[jayclock]

I've had experience with applying thermal paste and replacing my CPU before, so I didn't initially think taking out my heatsink would be an issue, but I do tend to get impatient and careless when working with my computer sometimes. Thanks again for the help.