Unfortunately, the appearance of a black screen on a computer with Windows systems at different stages of their functioning is one of the most unpleasant, although not critical situations. It is possible to deal with such manifestations of system behavior very successfully, but for this it is necessary to find out what caused such a phenomenon. The following material proposes to consider several typical situations and solutions to help eliminate possible problems.
What is the reason for the black screen: several possible situations
So, we propose to consider some of the most common situations. Firstly, the appearance of a black screen may be due to video processing when trying to play, which is fixed quite simply. Secondly, the problem can be much more serious, as evidenced by the complete blackout of the screen when the computer device boots up. But here you should immediately pay attention, sosay, on secondary symptoms (if there are notifications on the screen, and what, if the cursor is visible, if a blank darkened screen appears, etc.). Each such additional sign helps to uncover the root cause of the described failure.
As a rule, most users, based on descriptions of the problem on the Internet, attribute such malfunctions exclusively to the graphics adapter drivers. Yes, indeed, sometimes they are the culprits for the appearance of a black screen when you turn on a laptop or desktop PC. Sometimes, but not always. Quite often, the root cause may lie in the malfunctioning of the Windows operating systems themselves or, even worse, in a hard drive failure. But not everything is as bad as it might seem at first glance.
Troubleshoot video issues
Fixing problems should start with situations where the video does not show. The black screen in this case does not appear due to missing or outdated video system drivers. Everything is much more prosaic. It is possible that the player used to play the video file simply does not support this format, or the system lacks the necessary codecs and decoders. You may or may not receive a message that the system cannot play.
Therefore, first install the full set of codecs in the form of one of the versions of the K-Lite Codec Pack (Basic, Standard, Mega) and try to open the desired video. If this does not give an effect, just change the software player (for example, instead of the "native" Windows playeruse universal VLC player).
If a similar problem occurs with video playback on the Internet, first just update Flash Player to the latest version, and if this does not help, reset your browser settings.
Black screen when turning on laptop or desktop terminal: what to do first?
Now let's look at more unpleasant situations. While these accompanying symptoms will not be touched. Quite often, on stationary monitors, you can observe that the power supply LED is blinking, but there is no image on the screen. This can be encountered when the system goes into sleep mode. Try simply moving the mouse or briefly pressing the power button on the laptop to exit this mode.
Sometimes a black monitor screen can also indicate a power problem. This may be a loose fit of the contacts on the wires or even their oxidation. In this case, it is recommended to simply check all connections associated with the video card (for stationary computer terminals).
Separately, pay attention to the appearance of various kinds of notifications containing information that a non-system disk or media (non-system disk) is used to start, from which it is impossible to boot (say, a game disk forgotten in the drive) when the in the device BIOS first to start. Simply remove the media and reboot your system.
Issues of reinstalling and updating the graphics card driver
As already mentioned, the problem may be just in the graphics accelerator driver. It needs to be reinstalled. But what if the operating system won't boot?
For these purposes, it is desirable to use bootable or recovery disks like LiveCD containing the DriverPack Solution driver set. Usually the installation is carried out without problems, followed by a complete restart of the system in normal mode. If the result is negative, you will first have to deal with the he alth of the operating system itself.
Using the default start menu
Now let's move on to the most critical situations. To get started, use the F8 key at startup, which brings up the boot menu on systems of the seventh modification and below (to use this function in the tenth version, first boot from removable media, call the command line and run the bcdedit /set {current} bootmenupolicy legacy command).
If the black screen at startup is replaced by the start menu after pressing the specified key, immediately boot the system into safe mode. If this succeeds, you can reinstall or update the video card driver from the usual “Device Manager” (for this, a mode with network driver support is selected at startup) or using automated programs like Driver Booster (Internet connection is required). If there is no connection, use the original driver disk or install from the same DriverPack Solution.
Troubleshoot download issues
Butthe appearance of a black screen in Windows with the drivers may not be related. In this case, the main reason is a malfunction of the system itself.
To correct the situation, first of all, in the start menu, select the loading of the last known good configuration. It is possible that the system will be able to be revived.
If the result is zero, use boot from external media with installation distribution and restore through the standard procedure, which can be accessed by clicking on the appropriate link after selecting the locale in the installer window. If this does not work, you will have to use the command line tool (when starting from removable media, the combination Shift + F10 is used to call it).
Command line options
On the command line, its tools can be used in several ways. First of all, check the system components using the command sfc /scannow.
After the process of scanning and restoring files, if a violation of their integrity is detected, perform a full scan of the hard disk with automatic error correction using the line chkdsk /x /f /r.
If this does not help, and when you reboot in normal mode, the black screen will appear again (even ifbriefly), at the command prompt, first use the Check Computer Status command shown above.
After executing it, use the restore command shown in the image directly as an additional tool.
Finally, if the black screen is due to damage to the operating system bootloader, as a last resort, try using the Bootrec.exe toolkit with additional attributes (/FixMbr, /FixBoot and /RebuildBcd). The first two can have an immediate effect on restoring the bootloader, the third completely overwrites the boot records).
Additional tools
Finally, we consider that the system has booted normally. To prevent the occurrence of such situations in the future, it is first recommended to use the utility for repairing damaged or loading missing dynamic libraries DLL Suite.
Of course, as the most serious preventive measure, you should apply a complete scan of your computer for viruses. A regular antivirus is not suitable for this, but portable or disk utilities are fine. The most powerful among them are Dr. WebCureIt!, KVRT, Kaspersky Rescue Disk, etc.
Summary
Here's a summary and everything you need to know about troubleshooting black screen problems in various situations. As for your preferred tools, first find outreason for this phenomenon. Maybe a simple reboot will suffice. In case of violations in the operation of the video driver or the operating system as a whole, use safe mode, and if this does not work, restore the working capacity using the above methods (best of all through the command line, since its tools are the most effective). For those who are simply too lazy to do such things, we can recommend utilities like AVZ or Windows Repair. But, unlike the command console tools, no one will give a 100% guarantee of restoring the full functionality of Windows.
