Messages

1

General Computer Support / Re: Black screen when Windows boots!

« on: October 10, 2013, 11:26:21 am »

Well. I've written to the store I bought the card at, and in case my old card works fine I'll send the 760 back.

Regarding Windows and the HDD issues... I got a basic idea of what I want to do: Buy two new 1TB discs. Put them in and let D:, which contains all games and important documents, get RAID or whatever it was called and mirror all the content over there, or at least the most of it. After that I will install Windows on the empty 1TB disc, and try to set up everything. If anything goes wrong, I could always boot my old Windows for the meantime.

2

General Computer Support / Re: Black screen when Windows boots!

« on: October 09, 2013, 03:18:04 pm »

Can you explain a bit further about the Dos Prompt? I don't really understand.

3

General Computer Support / Re: Black screen when Windows boots!

« on: October 09, 2013, 02:18:10 am »

You could try putting the old card back in, run NFR(nasty file remover) cleans out old Video Drivers, then put back the GTX760 and re-install drivers
http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/nasty_file_remover.html

Can you confirm that the program won't delete any important files? I've heard complains about how some programs delete important Windows files.

4

General Computer Support / Re: Black screen when Windows boots!

« on: September 30, 2013, 12:53:32 pm »

So a very possible reason might be a dirty driver install? I suppouse that can be solved.

I will check further after this driver issue is fixed, if the solid color screen freeze on boot remains. It probably didn't happen now because I have been inside BIOS and safe mode a lot. I'll reply when I know. Thanks.

5

General Computer Support / Re: Black screen when Windows boots!

« on: September 30, 2013, 12:23:45 pm »

Update: It was all correct with resolution, refresh rate etc. The issue still remains. Should I do a complete driver cleanup and driver sweeper? Maybe that can solve the weird issues. If none of that works I guess the only option is to return the card as faulty.

UPDATE: WHAT?! I let the PC run for a few more minutes to see if Windows loaded normally even without the screen input. Suddenly "Welcome" appears. Everything... boots... I am kind of suprised. I'm confused. Very confused.

6

General Computer Support / Re: Black screen when Windows boots!

« on: September 30, 2013, 12:17:09 pm »

I will try that now. I'll come back in a few mins!

7

General Computer Support / Re: Black screen when Windows boots!

« on: September 30, 2013, 12:08:05 pm »

Yeah I agree with that. Can't have too many backups.

I opened up the PC and took out the faulty harddrive. I also used the time to change my GPU's PCI slot. However starting the PC up again brought me to the desktop and installing drivers for the card on that slot. After finishing it prompted me to restart. After the restart the screen stops responding. After "Windows is starting" and before "Welcome" the screen just lose the input. Starting in safe mode works, but even after updating all the drivers I can't start normally anymore. Should I reseat it to PCI slot 1 and try again?

8

General Computer Support / Re: Black screen when Windows boots!

« on: September 28, 2013, 01:42:46 am »

External drives are just normal hard drives inside a case.

A backup is northing more than a copy, and you want that copy on a different device in case one device dies.

So mirror hard drives, and then I use 2 external drives for backups which I rotate and keep one in a fire proof safe while the other one is hooked up. Then I just swap them every day.

Shane

Your solution is the best, but I think I will do this for starters atleast:

1. Buy a new system HDD and a new HDD for the important stuff, and let my older drives handle less important things. Do you recommend that I throw them all away though? They are probably 3+ years old.

2. Buy a WD My Passport® 1TB Black for backup. Is that a good choice?

9

General Computer Support / Re: Black screen when Windows boots!

« on: September 25, 2013, 02:56:48 pm »

Which is why in every system in my house, especially my work computer I always have my drives setup in Raid 1 (Mirroring)

So I have 2 drives installed setup in raid 1, one drive fails I have everything on my mirrored drive. And that is on top of my nightly backups I do to my external drive

Shane

That sure sounds safe. I'm thinking about using a NAS backup thing. I guess it's possible to set up a system that can take care of the backups. Or as you say I could get an external drive and let it do safety copies over to it. How is durability for external drives? Are we both talking about usb powered ones?

10

General Computer Support / Re: Black screen when Windows boots!

« on: September 24, 2013, 06:49:22 am »

Sounds like you might have what is know as the click of death.

It is a click sound from the drive. It means the drive is dead.

In the hard drive you have 3 spinning platters and a magnetic arm that goes between them that does all the reading and writing. The click you here is when the control chip for the arm is messed up or something else has and it is just the arm moving back and fourth and clicking when it reaches the end. The arm isnt responding. So while the data is still on the platters the arm cant read or write anything.

At least that is one reason for the click of death.

Shane

Yeah. I'm thinking about buying some new harddrives and copy all my important info there, aswell as installing a brand new Windows on one of the new harddrives. I also know my music production software is quite cranky about how it wants to operate, so I wonder if it will pretty much break my current projects or something.

I might have gathered a bit too much personal stuff on my PC over the years. I'm just hesitating because of what 'might' happen to my data once I switch, and what I might miss, or what can be lost if the other harddrive fails aswell. It's all a weighing of "I need to do this as a precaution." and "Can I keep on like this and be fine for a while longer?".

I became pretty paranoid about my other HDDs which are about the same age. I'm thinking they might break any day, so right now I just keep the PC off. I know harddrives might fail any day with no warning though. No telling when. I'm just unsure what to do right now.

I was told a big electronics do HDD repairs that might just fix my E: drive. Would that work, or is that a no-go with click of death?

11

General Computer Support / Re: Black screen when Windows boots!

« on: September 22, 2013, 04:06:01 am »

Hi, may be your Smps has become unusable. This does not cause loss of data. try replacing the smps and then try to boot. The POP is a electrical surge that denotes, that there is some short circuit or extra surge of pulse, damaging the smps. That could be tried.
      Shane would be happy to help you more in this regard, as i have also experienced and then replacing the smps, the computer becomes normal.
               It has nothing to do with the drive or data. It is a electrical tab, distributing the electricity to the computers.

I don't know anything about HDDs, so I have no idea how to proceed. The "pop" is more of a quick sliding-back sound. It's hard to describe. Should I get help from somebody with knowledge about it?

2nd question: It's not my main HDD. It's a spare drive that I used to have files from my old PC on. About 4-5 months ago I cleared it, formatted, and put my saved school material, some games, some music softwares in. Then one evening it just stopped appearing. Now today it starts that wheezing/squeak followed by a pop/slide. I can screenshot the error in event logger. It's the same that happened to D:, but D: recovered after I installed the USB Controller. Maybe it was that driver that permanently damaged E:?

12

General Computer Support / Re: Black screen when Windows boots!

« on: September 22, 2013, 02:55:46 am »

Scary thing happened. When I booted today there was a squeeling sound and a pop coming from inside the PC (couldn't be anything else than E: drive). The sounds were very faint, but at that point I lost all hope in ever regaining what is on there.

13

General Computer Support / Re: Black screen when Windows boots!

« on: September 21, 2013, 02:17:56 pm »

I updated the USB Controller and D: appeared again like nothing had happened (it did however rearrange my desktop and document shortcuts as they are redirected to D:). E: however is still not appearing. But it the same thing happened with that, it should still be intact. Just that it doesn't show up in Windows anymore.

I don't have a screenshot for the USB Controller thing anymore. I installed a download for it and D: came back. The warning sign disappeared too. I seem to be forced a reinstall of Windows, or alternatively use the tool provided here. Advice? I'm confused.

14

General Computer Support / Re: Black screen when Windows boots!

« on: September 20, 2013, 05:30:08 pm »

It shows up in neither. Of what I remember, only C:, D:, G: and a certain partition reserved by the system is there in Disk Management.

I never backed up E: because it was the least used drive I had. In itself it was almost a backup storage for my schoolwork.

It would be odd that this happens. All program and game icons from E: were normal when I started the PC. Only much later did I see that there was no E:. I tried restarting, but after that all the icons leading to E: were pictureless and suggests that this occured while the PC was on today.

EDIT: I looked in Event Logger. It mentions finding an error with the controller on \Device\Ide\IdePort2, followed by "\Device\Harddisk3\DR3 is not yet ready for access." (Roughly translated). Then following that there are three warnings that an error was detected on \Device\Harddisk3\DR3 when doing a switch action (or something).

My guess would be that something with the cable or power might be the culprit. What do you think?

EDIT 2: I found that Windows wants to update the Universal Serial Bus (it's icon got a yellow triangle warning on it). It refers to a broken link, but I found it later on ASUS homepage. That could not have caused the issue could it?

HELP!!!!! MY D: DRIVE ALSO DISAPPEARED NOW!

15

General Computer Support / Re: Black screen when Windows boots!

« on: September 20, 2013, 12:10:02 pm »

I now have a new and much more urgent issue. My E: drive just stopped showing up in Windows. Much of my schoolwork and games were in there... It shows up fine in BIOS but just doesn't work in Windows... I'm feeling terrible from all these issues.... 

16

General Computer Support / Re: Black screen when Windows boots!

« on: September 17, 2013, 11:35:22 am »

Thanks I will try what you said, but only after reseating the card though!

I have to admit being very lazy. I simply can't bother pulling out all cables and sliding the big aluminum case out of the shelf. However some day soon I expect myself to do it.

I will reply with results when I'm done.

17

General Computer Support / Re: Black screen when Windows boots!

« on: September 16, 2013, 11:53:03 pm »

1. My power supply is 850W I believe, and it's not even that old (1 year more or less). My system should run fine on just 650W anyway.

2. The card might very well be the cause as I also get artifacts from time to time outside fullscreen applications. I should try reseating it and check the cables. If that doesn't work I could send the card back to Gigabyte.

3. I have tried many many drivers, even modifying the config files to allow the old 314.22 drivers. No luck. The artifacts might be from bad drivers or installs too right?

4. Well I wouldn't expect that.

EDIT: When I started the PC now I got a disc read error. However after a restart it worked again with no problem.

18

General Computer Support / Black screen when Windows boots!

« on: September 16, 2013, 02:27:05 am »

I have a problem after installing my new GTX 760 graphics card. Now the PC takes much longer to get to the boot screen when starting. After the "starting Windows" screen appears the screen usually turns black, turquose, white, grey. This pretty much makes the PC completely freeze. I have tried many things, excluding reseating the card, checking the interior of the case for any odd things, trying a different card. I wonder if I should try using this utility to attempt repairing Windows, as Nvidia support advice me to do using the Windows disc. I want to give this program a shot though. Do you know about this particular problem? It ONLY happened after putting the new card in, and only after a few hard reboots from the solid screen freeze the BIOS screen took ages to load. (The point from where the screen is inactive to where it shows the AMD logo or whatever.

EDIT: I must add that I can run the pc in safe mode. After a while being in safe mode I can most of the time reboot and load Windows relatively normally, and have no problems while it is on. However often when it works the screen just becomes some kind of boggy green color, but with a mouse that moves, and after a while (can be a long time) the applications start appearing. First the background image, then the bottom bar, then the icons, then some other applications and so on.