Unfortunately, the appearance of a black screen on a computer with Windows systems at different stages of their operation is among 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 this phenomenon. The following material proposes to consider a few typical situations and solutions to help resolve potential problems.
What is the reason for the appearance of a black screen: several possible situations
So, we suggest considering some of the most common situations. Firstly, the appearance of a black screen may be associated with video processing when trying to play, which is fixed quite simply. Secondly, the problem can be much more serious, as evidenced by a complete dimming of the screen when loading a computer device. But here you should immediately pay attention, so to speak, to secondary symptoms (whether there are notifications on the screen, and which ones, whether the cursor is visible, whether a blank darkened screen appears, etc.). Each such additional feature helps to uncover the root cause of the described failure.
As a rule, most users, based on descriptions of the problem on the Internet, associate such violations in their work exclusively with the drivers of the graphics adapter. Yes, indeed, sometimes they are the culprits of 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 the breakdown of the hard drive. But not everything is as bad as it might seem at first glance.
Troubleshoot video issues
Correction of problems should begin with situations where the video does not show. The black screen in this case does not appear due to the absence or obsolescence of the video system drivers. Everything is much more prosaic. It is possible that the player used to play the video file simply does not support working with this format, or the system does not have the necessary codecs and decoders. A message about the impossibility of reproduction by the system may not be issued.
Therefore, to get started, 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 video you are looking for. If this does not work, just change the software player (for example, use the universal VLC player instead of the native Windows player).
If a similar problem is observed when playing videos on the Internet, first upgrade Flash Player to the latest version, and if this does not help, reset the browser completely.
Black screen when turning on a laptop or stationary terminal: what to do first?
Now let's look at more unpleasant situations. While we will not touch the specified accompanying symptoms. 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 seen when the system enters sleep mode. Try simply moving your mouse or briefly pressing the power button on your laptop to exit this mode.
Sometimes a black screen may indicate a power problem. This can be a loose fit of the contacts on the wires or even their oxidation. In this case, it is recommended to simply check all the 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 non-system disk is used to start, boot from which is impossible (say, a game disk forgotten in the drive) when the device is first set in the BIOS to start. Just remove the media and reboot the system.
Issues reinstalling and updating the video driver
As already mentioned, the problem may consist just in the graphics accelerator driver. It needs to be reinstalled. But what if the operating system does not boot?
For these purposes, it is advisable to use bootable or recovery disks like LiveCDs containing the DriverPack Solution driver set. Typically, installation is made without problems, followed by a full restart of the system in normal mode. If the result is negative, you will first have to address the health issues of the operating system itself.
Using the standard 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, invoke the command line and run the bcdedit / set {current} bootmenupolicy legacy command).
If the black screen at startup changes to the start menu after pressing the specified key, immediately use the system boot in safe mode. If it succeeds, it will be possible to reinstall or update the video card driver from the usual “Device Manager” (for this, a mode with support for network drivers is selected at startup) or using automated programs like Driver Booster (an Internet connection is required). If there is no connection, use the original driver disk or install them from the same DriverPack Solution package.
Download troubleshooting
But the appearance of a black screen in Windows with drivers may not be related. In this case, the main reason is the disruption of the system itself.
To correct the situation, first of all, in the start menu, select the download of the last successful configuration. It is possible that the system will be able to reanimate.
If the result is zero, use booting from an external medium with the installation distribution kit and perform recovery using the standard procedure, which can be accessed by clicking on the appropriate link after selecting regional standards in the installer window. If this does not take effect, you will have to use the command line toolkit (when starting from removable media, Shift + F10 is used to call it).
Command line features
At the command line, its tools can be used in several ways. First, check the system components using the sfc / scannow command.
Upon completion of the process of scanning and restoring files, if a violation of their integrity is detected, perform a full scan of the hard drive with automatic error correction using the line chkdsk / x / f / r.
If this does not help, and when you restart in normal mode, the black screen appears again (even if briefly), at the command line, first use the command to check the status of the computer shown above.
After its execution, as an additional tool, directly use the recovery command shown in the image.
Finally, if the appearance of the black screen is due to damage to the bootloader of the operating system, as a last resort, try to use the Bootrec.exe toolkit with the introduction of additional attributes (/ FixMbr, / FixBoot and / RebuildBcd). The first two can give an immediate effect on recovering the bootloader, the third completely overwrites the boot entries).
Additional tools
Finally, we believe that the system booted as usual. To prevent the occurrence of such situations in the future, for starters, it is recommended to use the utility for recovering damaged or loading the missing dynamic libraries DLL Suite.
Naturally, as the most serious preventive measure, you should use a full computer scan for viruses. A full-time 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.
Brief summary
Here is a brief summary of everything you need to know about troubleshooting black screen issues in different situations. As for the preferred tools, first find out the reason for this phenomenon. Maybe a regular reboot is enough. In the event of a malfunction in the video driver or the operating system as a whole, use the safe mode, and if this does not work, restore the performance using the above methods (best through the command line, since its toolkit is the most effective). For those who are too lazy to do such things, you can advise utilities like AVZ or Windows Repair. But, unlike the command console tools, nobody will give a 100% guarantee of restoring the full functionality of Windows.