Member Avatar for jransom18

After upgrading from 2000 Pro to XP Pro, it's random, but every 2nd or 3rd boot or so results in a black screen when starting Windows. The BIOS appears and everything, but once it starts Windows it's Black. I can hear the Windows StartUp Sounds, but no display at all. This is on TWO different laptops, two different manufacturers. After forcefully shutting down, and restarting, it's usually fine.

I have tried the following:

1) Lowering resolution
2) Lowering Colors From 65K to 256
3) Re-installing the video driver
4) Checking to make sure the other external monitor option is not causing the problem.

Whenever I start-up in Safe mode, it's fine. I really don't have any weird programs loading at start-up, so I don't think there's a conflict there... Any ideas on this crazy issue??
Thanks!

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Dani AI

Generated

Two important clues: the BIOS displays normally and Safe Mode is always fine. That strongly points to something that starts only in normal XP boots — a display driver, a service or the shell — rather than hardware failure. was right to point at drivers, but the next steps should be targeted diagnostics and a clean isolation process.

Try these focused checks (one at a time):

  • When the black screen happens press Ctrl+Alt+Del. If Task Manager appears use File -> New Task -> run explorer.exe. If the desktop returns, the shell or a startup app is the culprit.
  • Enable boot logging from the F8 menu (Enable Boot Logging) and inspect C:\Windows\ntbtlog.txt for drivers marked “did not load” — look especially for display, chipset or video-related drivers.
  • In Safe Mode use msconfig to do a clean boot: disable all non-Microsoft services and startup items, reboot; then re-enable items in small groups to isolate the offender.
  • From Safe Mode fully uninstall the display adapter (choose to remove driver files if prompted) so Windows falls back to the Standard VGA driver, then reboot. If that fixes it, install a clean vendor driver (prefer the GPU vendor’s package — Intel/ATI/NVIDIA — rather than a bundled OEM installer).
  • Update chipset drivers and, if advised by the laptop maker, the BIOS/firmware (follow the vendor instructions exactly).

If none of the above isolates it, a repair install or a fresh XP install after backing up data often clears deep driver/service conflicts left by an in-place upgrade from 2000. Avoid guessing BIOS/firmware files — only use files from the laptop maker’s support pages.

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Member Avatar for rasputinj

have you gone the video card makers website and checked for a new driver, or if you have go back to an older verision or generic Windows driver?

Member Avatar for jransom18

have you gone the video card makers website and checked for a new driver, or if you have go back to an older verision or generic Windows driver?

Yeah, definately, I gave that a try on one of the laptops, since it is a Dell, I got it off their website, but sadly no change.

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