XP Video Driver Problem?

[RSLancastr]

I've been having an odd problem in XP Home Edition of late.

After powering up, I get the blue screen with the icons for each of the users.

However, if I click on one of the icons, my monitor goes black, and displays "NO SIGNAL" at the bottom of the screen. Once that happens, you have to power the PC off and back on again.

If I wait for several minutes before clicking on the icon, there is no problem.

In fact, I've found a way to determine whether it is ready for me to click the icons. When you mouseover the icons, the one you are over is highlighted, and the rest are "greyed out." This means that it is okay to click an icon. If you do so before this "grey out" feature works, you get the black screen.

There are also times when you can click on the icon, and instead of the password prompt being white, it has a black rectangle inside of it. This is sometimes immediately followed by the black screen.

So... video driver issue? Virus? (NAV finds nothing).

Any advice would be appreciated.

[greyleonard]

That's a reasonably good first thing to check.
I would go to Control Panel > System > Hardware tab > Device Manager > then click the + next to "Display adapters" in the list > right click the entry for your video card and select "uninstall" > restart your PC > let Windows reinstall the video drivers > hope for the best so that you may avoid reinstalling XP. :)

(That's the quickest way to check, I think, but it would be even better to first find the latest version of the drivers for your video card/adapter and install that one manually after uninstalling your current one)

Also, you might have something trying to load with Windows that is fouling it up.
Can you go to Start menu > Run > type "msconfig" and take a look at the Startup tab and possibly spot anything unnecessary?

Good luck.

[JonnyFive]

I'd check the drivers first.

Do you know the manufacturer of your video card's chipset (e.g. ATI, nVidia) and the model of the card?

If not, you can probably pull it from Start > Run > "dxdiag" > Display

It should list your graphics controller type and chipset maker (It would be something like "nVidia geForce 7800 GS" or something like that, I believe).

[elevatedsteve]

Is your computer a Dell?
Do you have Symantec Anti-virus installed?
I know there have been bootup problems with this combination.
There are many sites out there talking about this kind of problem, but I can't post links yet.

[Mongrel]

That's a reasonably good first thing to check.
I would go to Control Panel > System > Hardware tab > Device Manager > then click the + next to "Display adapters" in the list > right click the entry for your video card and select "uninstall" > restart your PC > let Windows reinstall the video drivers > hope for the best so that you may avoid reinstalling XP. :)

(That's the quickest way to check, I think, but it would be even better to first find the latest version of the drivers for your video card/adapter and install that one manually after uninstalling your current one)

For potential driver issues I'd always use Driver Cleaner or Driver Sweeper first, Driver Sweeper is free (http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=1655).

Download latest graphics card drivers from manufacturer
Uninstall graphics card drivers through the Add\Remove programs list
Uninstall associated stuff that comes with drivers (Control panels)
Reboot computer into safe mode (Tap F8 on startup, choose safe mode from the menu)
Run Driver cleaner\sweeper as per included instructions*
Reboot normally, when windows tries to install cancel all attempts
Quickly check if your PC exhibits the same behaviour (if it does then it's something else wrong)
Install the new drivers as instructed on the website


*If you have an Nvidia or Intel graphics card be aware that some computers also have Nvidia\Intel chipsets on the motherboard, the graphics card stuff is normally easy to spot ;)

[JonnyFive]

For potential driver issues I'd always use Driver Cleaner or Driver Sweeper first, Driver Sweeper is free (http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=1655).

(snip)

Do what Mongrel says first, definitely. It could be that the drivers are corrupted or conflicting with something, so it would be best to sort that out first before moving on to something potentially more serious.

[RSLancastr]

Thanks, all! I will try some combination of the above this weekend.