Windows 8.1 not booting properly

[Anrui]

I'm having an issue where my computer is getting a blank screen on startup before the login where only the cursor is visible. I've tried everything short from a full reset. Refreshing failed, recovery failed, using bootrec /fixmbr failed. So I reinstalled Windows to finally get access to the OS and tried installing the updates as fast as possible but after a while, while downloading/installing updates the screen goes black, then everything minimizes, the desktop icons disappears and I can't access anything from the taskbar nor any programs that aren't 'apps' . After that the updates instantly fail and after restarting the updates and rebooting to install them the computer goes to the blank screen without restarting.

I had issues like this when first setting up Windows 8.1 for my newly built PC in November but updating before the dreaded minimize fixed it. The issue happened again last night. I was watching a stream when the monitor went black with the sound still playing, then the sound too died so I rebooted the computer only to be met with the blank screen of death.

I'm a computer tech student at my wit's end this time when it comes to solutions because now I think there are too many updates to download and install before the minimize (even just the important updates.) Are there any specific updates that fix the issue that I am having that I can quickly install to stabilize or what?

Please help. Thank you.

 

[smorizio]

if you can post your hardware info it help us a lot. your error sounds like the mb is falling over to the onboard gpu for some reason. as a tech have you installed the newest bios file and turned on intel xmp profile for the ram. if the mb is a newer intel mb go into display turn off muilt monitors and set it to peg/pci if your using a gpu. if your using onboard video set the bios to ipgpu not auto. on some of the intel mb has an issue if the onboard ipgpu ram size was set to 1024. set it to 256k see if the error stops if it does then change it to 512k if you can.

 

[Anrui]

if you can post your hardware info it help us a lot. your error sounds like the mb is falling over to the onboard gpu for some reason. as a tech have you installed the newest bios file and turned on intel xmp profile for the ram. if the mb is a newer intel mb go into display turn off muilt monitors and set it to peg/pci if your using a gpu. if your using onboard video set the bios to ipgpu not auto. on some of the intel mb has an issue if the onboard ipgpu ram size was set to 1024. set it to 256k see if the error stops if it does then change it to 512k if you can.

Here are my system specs

I didn't have my XMP profile on, but now I do and it didn't seem to solve anything. My GPU is dedicated and i have it set up properly. I remember the issue last time being due to my GPU not being properly recognized so I'm going to reinstall windows to check on that to see if it's properly recognized and seated in the slot.

 

[smorizio]

http://us.msi.com/support/mb/A78ME35.html#down-bios
check to see your running the newest bios file.
make sure your video cable plugged into the gpu video port.

 

[Anrui]

I managed to fix the issue by reinstalling my gpu, apparently the issue was it not being properly recognized so taking out and putting it back in worked like a charm.