vista prob - at login - screen goes black - plz help

[heyyo]

when i start my laptop (vista ultimate upgraded) it loads upto the login screen fine and then all of a sudden it goes black, and the only way around this is to shut down the power button and press it again and it loads up the login screen again and everything is fine.

it never used to happen before, im not sure what it is, im guessing its something i have installed....but i can't work it out

can anyone advise...

[LSainsbury]

Tried Last Known Good Configuration?

[abailey152]

I don't know if this is relevant, but I had similar issue after installing SP1. It turned out that my Anti-virus/Firewall (ESET Smart Security) was blocking/conflicting with something at start-up.

Once you have the black screen, try CTRL-ALT-DELETE, then load the Task Manager. Kill the "explorer.exe" process, then start a new task (File-New Task), point to your Windows folder and choose "explorer.exe". If this loads the desktop, you may have a similar issue.

The fix was to uninstall ESET Smart Security, reboot to allow whatever wants to start, to complete its cycle (In my case it was SP1), then re-install Smart Security.

I'm not sure if your issue is the same, but I guess it's a place to start.

[heyyo]

tried the tips mentioned, stll no luck. can't press control al delete when screen is black, it happens at the login screen. its so annoying and i dont want to install vista again, as i got all my programes now set....i tried system restore that didn't work either

[Druchii]

Does your laptop have a Function key to change which display it's using? You know, so you could use an external screen with it? Might be worth tapping that to see if it's thinking an external screen is still attached at first. Normally Fn + F7 or something similar.

In XP you could just press the down arrow and type your password, hit enter and you'd be shown the desktop on the laptops screen regardless. (At least in my limited experience you could) Dunno if this works for vista too.

[admars]

try going into Safe Mode and see if event viewer shows anything in the logs

[David F]

try uninstalling the gfx drivers (if ev doesnt show anything)