[SOLVED] Stuck at loading screen, works in safe mode

Mathias Hauergryn

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May 7, 2014
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Hello, I have a problem I simple cannot figure out. I feel like I've tried a lot but without luck and can't seem to get further on what the problem is and what components might be causing it.

So let's start from the begining. I was playing games just fine yesterday and shutdown the computer. However I have had an issue the last couple weeks or so where some times when I turn on the PC it will blink an underscore like there is no bootable device (not sure if this has to do with anything).
But today when I tried to turn it on it just gave me a black screen so I thought it was the issue as mentioned above and maybe it was I'm not quite sure, however I decided to clear CMOS to see if that would help with the issue I have been having.
After this the PC will always get stuck in loading screen (It will show bios and then the windows logo and the spinning circle. Then it will go to black screen and the keyboard will go out after a couple of seconds while the PC is still on).

So I tried with only 1 ram stick, reseating GPU and checking screens and so on with no luck. I then tried the windows repair and it booted in safe mode! But still no luck with normal boot.
I then tried reinstalling the graphics driver (both in device manager and installing nvidia drivers) no luck.
Afterwards I tried a lot of other stuff but nothing helped so I just tried to reinstall windows to see if that helped. The built in reset of windows gave me an error, so I had to use a usb stick.

Now comes the part I don't understand and makes no sense to me. After I reinstall windows it boots just fine, however without nvidia graphics drivers and so on obviously.
So I thought it was all fine, but after I've been using it for a couple of minutes the screen turn black only with the cursor left on the screen. I try to restart the computer and it is stuck at loading again!

I've tried reinstalling windows a couple times with the same result also on different SSD's so I believe that is out of the picture. With some installations it is stuck at the spinning circle and in others the screen goes black but in both cases the keyboard goes out, don't know if this matters. However after a clean reinstall it is possible to restart the pc just fine, but if I just leave it on for like 5 minutes the screen goes black and it can't reboot again (only in safe mode).

I have never been able to successfully install the nvidia drivers, it always goes black in the installation or won't boot after I need to restart after the installation is done. Don't know if it actually is the graphics drivers that is causing this problem, but I can try to investigate this more and see if I can actually get the nvidia drivers to work if you think this could potentially be the problem.


I hope you guys can help a confused person like me. Ask if you need any more information or have any questions.

Specs:
i5-8600k
ASUS Z370-F
RTX 2080
4x8 GB Trident Z RGB RAM
 
Solution
If it were me, i'd take that RTX 2080 and test in a different system.
  1. If the issue replicates, then RMA the card.
  2. If the issue doesn't replicate, then i'd move my troubleshooting towards either the SSD or how Windows is being installed on it.
Where are you downloading the nvidia driver from?

Mathias Hauergryn

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May 7, 2014
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Okay, so I tried some more things today and got some interesting but confusing results...
I tried to pull out the graphics card and it would boot up just like with the graphics card installed and on a fresh windows install on the generic windows graphics driver. However the screen would again turn black after a while of use, I then tried ctrl+alt+del and the screen would show up with pruple artifacts (see the picture).
y4moIcul_wYzMnA3QLwkZ7mrPv11SUdMztTg_kjGV4Er0KOUoglZk-0QgP08Gjw9jTcwlrkm-b1eJpwg3vgj1Rm8t4HfSLtvj19uISBlTTVeU01xY04QJegRzxN84Fzr4blbROu-w4R-Fj0XUCjcl229H7MYYhJfwDxJBEqZpOuOFBA1SWJTeYzfcNi771ySKCWX6uiI541hElj_6jKCLlOcQ

This doesn't happen when the screen goes black with the graphics card installed and I try ctrl+alt+del.

I then tried to put the graphics card back in and it would boot up as well. I then tried to install the nvidia drivers but the screen got black during the installation and now it won't boot with the graphics card again.
I noticed this time that wheter it will freeze at the spinning circle at bootup or black screen right after it depends wheter if I have the screen plugged in to the motherboard or the graphics card (both with graphics card installed).
If I take the graphics card out it will boot just fine.

So what I've learned is that it will go to black screen when I try to install the nvidia drivers and then it won't boot with the graphics card again until I've reinstalled windows.
But it will also black screen when the graphics card isn't installed (and purple artifacts when I ctrl+alt+delete) which is bothering me, so I don't know if it is the graphics card that is causing this.

Should I try to re-seat the CPU?
I don't have another PC in my home, but I will try my GPU in a friends PC to see if the GPU works fine there.
Any other suggestions? Or do you have any idea what could cause this?
 
D

Deleted member 14196

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your graphics card may be failing. are your temps ok? what % usage on cpu and gpu when you play, and temps while playing?

maybe you should not be installing the latest drivers, if they break things after a clean install, it may mean your hardware doesn't play well with it.
 
What you're describing is a graphics driver issue. The format and reload solved the issue because the graphics driver was not installed post OS installation. Windows updates then starts for the first time and searches for needed windows updates and one of them so happens to be the graphics driver. The question is, what graphics driver is windows updates trying to install? You can go into device manager and note the graphics driver being installed automatically under display adapters. You can then right click on it and uninstall the driver deleting all contents and reboot. The results in doing this will tell you two things:
  1. If the issue does not replicate then we've narrowed it down to that specific driver version.
  2. If the issue does replicate, then it is most likely another system driver that is automatically installing post OS installation.
Note: You'll have to disable automatic driver downloads on Windows 10:
https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/disable-automatic-driver-downloads-on-windows-10

Start there and let me know what you find out. We may have to do more troubleshooting.
 

Mathias Hauergryn

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May 7, 2014
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What you're describing is a graphics driver issue. The format and reload solved the issue because the graphics driver was not installed post OS installation. Windows updates then starts for the first time and searches for needed windows updates and one of them so happens to be the graphics driver. The question is, what graphics driver is windows updates trying to install? You can go into device manager and note the graphics driver being installed automatically under display adapters. You can then right click on it and uninstall the driver deleting all contents and reboot. The results in doing this will tell you two things:
  1. If the issue does not replicate then we've narrowed it down to that specific driver version.
  2. If the issue does replicate, then it is most likely another system driver that is automatically installing post OS installation.
Note: You'll have to disable automatic driver downloads on Windows 10:
https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/disable-automatic-driver-downloads-on-windows-10

Start there and let me know what you find out. We may have to do more troubleshooting.

Thanks for replying.

I just reinstalled windows again without the graphics card being installed and there was no problem. As you said windows update was installing a display driver for the integrated graphics. It actually failed the first time, but then I clicked restart and then it installed it succesfully, maybe it had just failed and black screened the other times (and also purple artifacts).
EDIT: Yes this is indeed the fact. It froze shortly after when I didn't press restart.

Well that doesn't really matter as long as I can get my GPU to work, so I put my GPU back in again and booted. However this time windows update didn't automatically find a driver even after I searched for updates, but the graphics card showed up as a Basic Display Adapter in device manager with a triange besides it. So I updated the driver through here, but it didn't show the driver version it was installing. At last when it was installing the driver the PC froze for a bit and then went black screen still with a mouse showing.

I tried to reinstall windows again (for the 10th time...) and this time both we're trying to update automaticly and I got the driver version. It was trying to install an intel driver version 26.21.14.3086 (and 25.20.100.6374 for the integrated graphics).
However I did disable automatic driver downloads and rebooted but it was still downloading the driver update after wards, so I pressed the pause windows updates for 7 days and it stopped the download. But after a while the screen still went black, so do you think it tried to install it anyways even though it was paused?
Atleast I think so..
 
Last edited:

Mathias Hauergryn

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Yes I was also going to do so, it's just weird that I also have problems sometimes when the graphics card isn't installed.
But thanks for now, I will try it in another system and another gpu in my system. RMA is just going to be a pain in a butt because I bought the graphics as the only component in my system in another country...