Windows 8 black screen after restart

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Dainius56

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Just figured I would share the problem I see many people are having. After installing windows 8 pro upgrade all seemed to work just fine. Got my games reinstalled, checked all drivers, and installed all 4-5 windows updates. Restart time. Computer restarts to a black screen while sometimes showing the log in screen for about 5 seconds before cycling through this problem again. Shows monitor turns off and on the boom black screen with cursor. I have tried multiple fixes on the net but none worked. Then I uninstalled the windows updates from earlier and seems it fixed my problem. I have restarted multiple times with no problems yet. Maybe this will help someone out there that is ready to pull there hair out.
 



No you have not fixed the problem, you worked around the problem.
I just got done spending hours on fixing a problem like that on my machine.

My system seemed to work as expected with windows 8, I got all the updates then the machine would fail to wake up correctly after sleep ( looked like a memory corruption, black screen on wakeup, sometimes the system (apps) was unresponsive after wakeup .

I did the following:
updated software:
installed all windows 8 updates: problem detected.
updated intel chipset software drivers: problem persisted
updated AMD graphics software drivers: problem persisted

updated firmware:
updated ASUS BIOS firmware: problem persisted
updated SSD firmware: BINGO problem fixed


The problem: I looked at the fixes in the solid state drives firmware, the fixes indicated fixes to TRIM functions and sleep problems.

Main point: don't forget to update the machines firmware. I stopped updating various hardware firmware after my problem was fixed. My network card, graphics card and raid controller also have firmware that might need to be updated at some time. ( I had turned off the raid controller in the BIOS so I know it was not the problem)

anyway hope this helps someone in the future.

 

Dainius56

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well so far I tried new gpu drivers, windows updates, I recently updated my mobo bios but need to check for some new ones since windows 8 release. and now ill look into My hd firmware. thanks for the post. might just leave it alone for now since its working fine while waiting for sp1 or the such.
 

Dainius56

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well problem showed its ugly face again. After trying countless times to get it to happen but anyways. I'm looking for advice on what to do next to avoid this problem. I have downloaded gpu drivers, even though they are the same that come installed on windows 8. Just updated to newest bios on mobo. No firmware updates for monitor. Went ahead and reinstalledall windows updates since that seemed to just postpone the inevitable. Advice?
 

silhouttejames

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I'm having a similar issue. I upgraded to Windows 8 this morning. Everything looked fine. I closed my laptop and went to work. When I got to the office and opened the laptop, black screen. It took a few hard resets to finally get it to fire back up.

I close my laptop, and head home. I open my laptop and it's extremely hot, fans going crazy, BLACK SCREEN.

I have an Alienware Mx17, Radeon 7970m graphics card. I sincerely hope MS acknowledges this sooner than later instead of looking for a zillion other things to blame it on. Until then I'm rolling back to Windows 7. What a shame too. After a few hours of playing around with it, it seems pretty slick.
 

Jay R L

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AMD Radeon 7970m and Windows 8

I have an Alienware M18XR2 with dual 7970m cards. I installed Windows 8 the day after it was released. When my system crashed, I called MicroSoft. After several re-installs of Windows 8, the tech said it had to be a video or audio driver issue, and we re-installed Windows 7. I am now back on Windows 8, but I still can't use the 7970ms. I've tried installing new drivers, including the latest update from Dell (November 1, 2012) and drivers from AMD's website. Nothing has worked. I've even tried disabling one 7970m card, but my computer eventually crashed anyway.With the 7970ms running, after Windows 8 crashes I need to use a restore point to get it running again. I then have to immediately switch off the cards and restart before it crashes again, and even then there are corruptions--I've had to re-install my audio drivers and flash the bios after a restore point, as well as deal with other problems. It is tricky installing new drivers because I have to switch on the cards to do so, otherwise the drivers won't install, and if I'm not quick enough it crashes, but even after a successful install of the latest drivers, it still crashed. I'm guessing I'll have to wait a few weeks for AMD to release a solution to the problem. I now run my system with the cards switched off and use the Intel HD 4000 (i7 Ivy Bridge) gpu.
 

Dainius56

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it seem mine is running better since I have down clocked my cpu. I could run it at 4.5 all day long but now anything over 4 gives me the black screen. Not sure if that's the actual problem but for now it seems stable. If not ill keep posted.
 

rene13cross

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Is it just me or are there loads of issues with Win 8 atm?! Lots of people seem to have one problem or another. And of course I don't mean problems like not being able to get used to the new interface but actual technical problems..?
 

Jay R L

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I ran the compatibility check before installing Windows 8. The Windows 8 Upgrade Assistant Report said, "AMD Catalyst Install Manager . . . Reinstall it in Windows 8 . . . ATI Catalyst Control Center . . . Reinstall it in Windows 8". I reinstalled both, but the system still crashed. I updated everything, but the problem persisted.
 

Dainius56

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yea the only problem I had with windows 8 was the black screen issue. But since downclocking my cpu I have not had one issue. Im now running my fx-4100 with the turbo boost enabled in the bios which sets it to 3.8. No problems yet. I have slowly left its settings alone and bumped it to 4.0 No problems yet. When I OC to 4.5 I must have disabled something that 8 did not agree with. But I read windows 8 does not like overclocking yet I see lots of people doing it no problems. I'll slowly play with the OC and hope its good. Seems my problem is fixed for now though. Hopefully
 
You might want to determine if your machine is having a sleep/wake issue. you might be able to narrow it down buy just turning off the sleep functions in control panel power management. Just set the system to high performance and never sleep.
Then do shutdowns rather than letting your system sleep. If the problem continues
then you know it is most likely not a sleep/wake issue.

if it looks like a sleep/wake problem there are many things you have to check
but first run powercfg.exe /energy and take a look at the energy report.
It puts the report in windows\system32 and you will have to copy it out before you can open it in win8.

 

Dainius56

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yea its not a sleep issue. I already tried setting it to high performance and making sure sleep was disabled. It only happens when turning on the computer or restarting. Thanks for the advice though. Ill remember that for when I do have that problem lol
 



just a guess then:

- power supply power good signal indicates true to the motherboard before it has actually stabilized.
The timing circuits change with age of the power supply, cheaper supply might just fake the signal and hope for the best.

- overclocked graphics card might draw out of spec power from the PCI bus during a cold boot where its entire electronics have to undergo its hardware initialization. Results will be unpredictable. The card would fail its own startup logic and not be able respond to timing signals or set itself up to communicate on the bus properly.

only real thing to do is:
- reduce the overclock on the card (you did this)
- remove/disable other devices from the same bus that could be taking power during its own initialization
- Add a timing delay to the power supply power good signal or try another good power supply


I expect that Windows 8 attempts to speed up the boot process is just exposing problems that already exist on your system but were masked by the slower boot process of windows 7

anyway, good to hear your system is up again.
 

Jay R L

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Do you have AMD video card(s)? That seems to be the problem with many Windows 8 crashes. I haven't yet tried your solution of uninstalling updates because my system crashed shortly after installing Windows 8, before any updates were applied I believe. I've tried installing Catalyst Control Center using AMD's auto detect and install tool, but my system always crashes before the install is complete. I've tried disabling my AMD Radeon cards and then installing Catalyst Control, but it won't install since there is no compatible hardware.
 

Dainius56

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yea the uninstalling updtes didn't pan out in the long run. I run a NVidia gtx 660. Now the power supply is a good theory mainly because I have been using the same one for 5 years now. It's definitely time to update. I'll keep an eye on them for sale and grab a corsair. If only so it does not take out my whole system is a good defense.
 
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