Blank Screen during Boot-Up

Question

Hello All, Laptop: Dell Inspiron 1520 (Windows Vista) I'm currently trying to help out my cousin with his laptop that's having problems... What's happening is when you power-on the PC it begins loading, you see the Bios load screen then after that it goes to the 'Dell Media Direct' loading page and after about 1 or 2 seconds, the screen goes blank... It doesn't seem like it's just colored black, I'm pretty sure at this point the monitor has no power to it..? When the screen goes blank the laptop is still powered on. I can tell cause the Power light is still lit as well as the flashing light for the CPU is blinking (*seemingly like it should) and also if I hit the volume buttons I can hear some sound from the speakers. So I know it's still 'On'... I found the Disc which contains the 'Drivers and Diagnostics' and ran the Full Test, which all Passed (*i.e. Video, sound, memeory, etc...), but I didn't think it ran a test on the HDD so I ran a separate FULL test on the HDD which all passed without any issues. Because my first inclination was that the HDD was going bad but after running that test as well as some other 3rd part HDD Diagnostic tests, the Hard Drive SEEMS ok... As of now the only  Discs he gave me was the one I mention above as well as the Disc for the 'Dell Media Direct' Software. I haven't used Vista in a while so i wasn't sure if there was also a Disc to reinstall windows to restore to factory defaults, OR if it uses a Recovery partition in order to do that? I was told by my cousin that he's not worried about ANY data on the PC so if I had to restore it to factory settings, that would be fine. So if this issue of the screen going blank isn't worth the time to try and 'fix' it, then I will just restore to factory defaults once I figure out how Vista does it... So does anyone have any ideas if this problem might be fixable? And if it's not worth the time to fix, could someone tell me how Vista gets restored to Original Factory Settings (*i.e. Disc or Recovery Partition)? Thanks in Advance, Matt

DELL-Amogh G · Answer

Hi Matt,

I would suggest you to drain the residual power from the laptop:

Disconnect any external peripherals (flash drives, printers, external hard drives) from the computer
Then remove the adapter
Remove the battery
Press and hold the power button for 10 seconds
Reconnect the battery and the adapter

You may run hardware diagnostics on the system for hardware functionality, by following the steps below:

Reboot and press F12 to enter the Boot Menu
When the boot device list appears, highlight Diagnostics and press Enter
The computer begins to run the Pre-boot System Assessment, a series of embedded diagnostics that perform initial testing on your system board, keyboard, hard drive, and display
In case any hardware component is bad, you will get a corresponding error

If diagnostics pass without any error, you may try to boot in ‘Safe Mode’ from the steps given below:

Restart or Power on the system.
Tap at dell logo until ‘Advanced Boot Options’ appear.
Choose ‘Safe Mode’ and hit .

If the system is able to boot in ‘Safe Mode’, you may uninstall the video drivers. Please follow the steps below:

Press ‘Windows’ key + R on ‘Desktop’ screen.
Type ‘devmgmt.msc’ in run box and press ‘Enter’.
Click > sign next to ‘Display Adapters’.
Right click the entry listed under ‘Display Adapters’ and click ‘uninstall’.
Restart the system after uninstalling the driver.

To know how to restore system back to factory settings, you may refer to the link: http://dell.to/15Ok8rA.

* Note: This step leads to complete data loss including pictures, music files, videos, documents and applications. Please disconnect any external peripherals as well.

Keep me posted with the findings. I will be glad to assist you.

mmartin0926 · Answer

Hey Amogh, thanks for the reply!

Wow! Awesome detail there, VERY much appreciated..!

I'll have to follow your steps when I get home from work sometime later tonight since I don't have the laptop with me at the moment.I don't know why I didn't think to try to boot in Safe Mode... I guess I've been using Linux for too long lol...

But AGAIN, thanks for the post some great stuff there! I'll probably give that first set of instructions a try first, then if that doesn't work, and since I've ran tons of diagnostics already, I'll try booting in safe mode and reinstall the video card's drivers..

Thanks AGAIN,
Matt

DELL-Amogh G · Answer

Hi Matt,

I am glad that you found the information useful. I hope you have performed the troubleshooting steps by now and the issue is resolved.

Awaiting for response!

Keep me posted with the findings. I will be glad to assist you.

mmartin0926 · Answer

Amogh, sorry for the delay work has been crazy the last week or so and it just seems like that time of the year for servers to start breaking down...

Anyway, I ran every diagnostics available on the PC and they all Passed. I also ran a few other HDD Tests that I have on a Boot CD (like HDAT2) and they all passed as well. I also drained all the residule power as you suggested...

So then I attempted to boot into safe mode and that's when things started getting a little strange. So I turned on the PC, and began hitting F8 when the Bios Loading and Dell logos appear. So on the very next screen it shows "Please Select the operating system to start:" and the only option available is "Microsoft Windows XP Embedded", which is strange because it's really Vista. At the bottome of that screen it also says, "For troubleshooting and advanced startup options for Windows, press F8".

So I hit F8 and now I get the options to boot into the different safe modes. And if I try clicking into any one of the Safe Mode options it takes me to another screen where it asks me again what "OS" to start, and the ONLY option showing is "Windows XP Embedded"... So I hit enter on that option anyway and I can see the drivers loading, then bam... BSOD (*Blue Screen).

The Error showing is: 0x0000007B (0xF798C524, 0xC0000034, 0x00000000, 0x00000000)

The last time I remember seeing this screen and what seems like a simlier error code, was when the HDD went on our old desktop. Do you think it's probably a bad HDD..?

Also, in following the link you posted to restore to factory defaults, when I hit F8 like before to get to the Advanced Boot Options, there is NOT an option that says, "Repair Your Computer". So I'm not sure how you would restore back to factory defaults..?

mmartin0926 · Answer

Update:

So I decided to pull out the HDD and use my SATA/IDE to USB Adapter that I have and plug the HDD directly into MY Laptop. The HDD came up within a minute on my laptop and I could see a Recovery Partition, the OS Partition, and the MEDIADIRECT Partiton. So now I know it DOES have a recovery partition on it...

So now I'm even more confused why it's not working seeing that things "seem" fine at the moment with the HDD. That's not to say that something isn't wrong with it, I just haven't seen anything that would say it's bad... All HDD Tests passed and I can browse all 3 partitions without ANY problems at all.

One other thing... I read about trying F10 to boot to Repair/Recovery Boot Options, but that was for a Sony laptop running Vista, but I thought I'd try anyway. So when hitting F10 during the Bios screen another screen flashes up almost too quick to do anything. If I'm still hitting F10 accidently when the screen comes up it goes away and back into attempting regular bootup mode, and if I stop hitting F10 before the next screen comes up it completely skips past it all together... Maybe I'm just not getting the timing right but it's starting to get a bit annoying having to force a shutdown after it blows past that screen everytime. But from what I can see from the split second the screen flashes up there, is that it looks like again, a screen asking "what OS to start" and I can briefly see for a moment that it says once again "Windows XP Embedded"?

Now I'm baffled....!

Thanks in Advance,

Matt

DELL-Amogh G · Answer

Hi Matt,

You may try to reset system BIOS to defaults. Please follow the steps below:

Power on the system and tap at the ‘Dell’ logo
Press on the ‘System Setup Utility’ screen and then press ‘Enter’
Press to ‘Save Changes and Exit’ and press ‘Enter’ again

If the issue persists than you may try to clean install Windows Vista. Please refer to the link: http://dell.to/18t0DoB.

Hope this helps. please feel free to reply for any further assistance.

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Blank Screen during Boot-Up

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