Black screen for a while during boot, yes I've reinstalled

[levander]

Have a NF7-S v2, Thoroughbred B 1700+, not currently overclocked, 512 MB RAM. And a ATI 9800 PRO and an ATI 9000 PRO that I've tried switching out. Now, for the problem.

When I reboot my computer, after the BIOS messages finish, I get a black screen for a while, maybe three minutes, then I get the XP progress bar graphic and the computer boots fine.

It started doing a few weeks ago. Until a few days into it, it just froze while I was using the machine. I rebooted, and it took awhile with the black screen. So, I reinstalled the video drivers, because sometimes after a boot, my screen resolution would get set down to 60 Hz, and I would have to manually go in and set it back up to 100Hz. Reinstalling the video drivers made the black screen during boot go away, for about two days.

Tried reinstalling the operating system over the current XP install. When I did this, I had to reinstall the video drivers to get resolutions above whatever the dinky defaults are in XP, they weren't available on the dialog box until I installed the video driver. This got rid of the black screen during boot, for about two days.

I did a fresh install of XP, reformatting the hard drive. Re-installing everything. This got rid of the problem with the black screen for about two days.

So, I uninstalled the video driver. Making sure to run ATI's cat-uninstaller which is supposed to guarantee a clean uninstall. Shut the computer down, and rebooted. Still had the black screen during boot. After booting I told Windows not to automatically install the hardware and ran ATI's installer program directly. Rebooted. Still have the black screen.

Not that the black screen is so bad. But, doesn't it mean that something's wrong with the computer? It's just wierd that the problems not intermittent. When I first do a reinstall of something, it works for a day or two. Then goes back to the black screen. And, I get the black screen for every boot thereafter.

Anybody got anything else to try before I have to buy new hardware?

I've turned on boot logging. The first driver to fail is ndproxy.sys, which I know was failing to load when the computer was booting fine:

Loaded driver \SystemRoot\System32\Drivers\Null.SYS
Loaded driver \SystemRoot\System32\Drivers\Beep.SYS
Did not load driver \SystemRoot\System32\DRIVERS\kbdhid.sys
Loaded driver \SystemRoot\System32\drivers\vga.sys
Loaded driver \SystemRoot\System32\Drivers\mnmdd.SYS
Loaded driver \SystemRoot\System32\DRIVERS\RDPCDD.sys
Loaded driver \SystemRoot\System32\Drivers\Msfs.SYS
Loaded driver \SystemRoot\System32\Drivers\Npfs.SYS
Loaded driver \SystemRoot\System32\DRIVERS\rasacd.sys
Loaded driver \SystemRoot\System32\DRIVERS\ipsec.sys
Loaded driver \SystemRoot\System32\DRIVERS\tcpip.sys
Loaded driver \SystemRoot\System32\DRIVERS\netbt.sys
Loaded driver \SystemRoot\System32\drivers\afd.sys
Loaded driver \SystemRoot\System32\DRIVERS\netbios.sys
Did not load driver \SystemRoot\System32\DRIVERS\processr.sys
Did not load driver \SystemRoot\System32\Drivers\PCIDump.SYS
Loaded driver \SystemRoot\System32\DRIVERS\rdbss.sys
Loaded driver \SystemRoot\System32\DRIVERS\mrxsmb.sys
Did not load driver \SystemRoot\System32\Drivers\Imapi.SYS
Loaded driver \SystemRoot\System32\DRIVERS\ipnat.sys
Loaded driver \SystemRoot\System32\DRIVERS\wanarp.sys
Loaded driver \SystemRoot\System32\DRIVERS\arp1394.sys
Loaded driver \SystemRoot\System32\Drivers\Fips.SYS
Loaded driver \SystemRoot\system32\DRIVERS\usbprint.sys
Loaded driver \SystemRoot\System32\Drivers\Cdfs.SYS
Loaded driver \SystemRoot\System32\DRIVERS\ndisuio.sys
Did not load driver \SystemRoot\System32\DRIVERS\rdbss.sys
Did not load driver \SystemRoot\System32\DRIVERS\mrxsmb.sys
Loaded driver \SystemRoot\System32\DRIVERS\mrxdav.sys
Loaded driver \SystemRoot\System32\Drivers\ParVdm.SYS
Loaded driver \SystemRoot\System32\DRIVERS\srv.sys
Did not load driver \SystemRoot\System32\DRIVERS\ipnat.sys
Loaded driver \SystemRoot\system32\DRIVERS\usbprint.sys
Loaded driver \SystemRoot\system32\DRIVERS\usbprint.sys
Loaded driver \SystemRoot\System32\DRIVERS\usbccgp.sys
Loaded driver \SystemRoot\System32\DRIVERS\hidusb.sys
Loaded driver \SystemRoot\System32\DRIVERS\kbdhid.sys
Loaded driver \SystemRoot\System32\DRIVERS\mouhid.sys
Loaded driver \SystemRoot\system32\drivers\wdmaud.sys
Loaded driver \SystemRoot\system32\drivers\sysaudio.sys
Loaded driver \SystemRoot\system32\drivers\splitter.sys
Loaded driver \SystemRoot\system32\drivers\aec.sys
Loaded driver \SystemRoot\system32\drivers\swmidi.sys
Loaded driver \SystemRoot\system32\drivers\DMusic.sys
Loaded driver \SystemRoot\system32\drivers\kmixer.sys
Loaded driver \SystemRoot\system32\drivers\drmkaud.sys
Loaded driver \SystemRoot\System32\Drivers\HTTP.sys
Loaded driver \SystemRoot\system32\drivers\kmixer.sys
Loaded driver \SystemRoot\system32\drivers\kmixer.sys

[resonance]

I'm not saying that it'll work for you, and I'm no pro, but as it sounds like you're ready to try anyhthing... you could try Bootvis. It's actually an MS utility (not for DL thru MS though) and is for optimising boot-times. Try googling gor some articles on its use, but from memory, you select 'Options, Trace + Optimise'. I found out about it from a WinTweaking guide, and recently used it again when a modified video driver gave me a black screen between Windoze loading screen and the log-in screen.

Hope it helps! Another utility to tuck under your belt...

[levander]

Your black screen came after the Windows progress bar screen and before the login screen? And, it was a problem with your video driver?

My black screen is before the Windows progress bar screen. Which is a big part of what was making me think it was the video card. I was thinking that because the black screen is coming just before any real graphics are displayed. And was thinking, "maybe it's having trouble loading the video driver?"

But, if it loads the video driver at a different place in the boot process, that's not it.

However, one thing I've learned about Windows over the last two months (have had several computers I've had to work on, even though I'm not really that good with Windows) is that it just doesn't seem that consistent. I can't imagine under Linux drivers not loading and it not being a big deal. Makes you really wonder what Microsoft is doing loading drivers that don't matter. Plus, I've looked all through their event log, you'd think there'd be something in there that indicated some kind of system instability. There's alway been something under Linux.

Really don't want to start a flame war though. I'm fully aware my confusion could just be because I'm not as familiar with Windows as I am with Linux.

I definitely will try that utility you mentioned tomorrow, it's late now.

[levander]

Well, according to Bootvis. I'm taking 95 seconds in disk initialization time. I do have one disk attached to the SATA controller on the NF7-3 that is not recongnized during boot.

That disk doesn't show up in Device Manager under Hard Disks, although the silicon image RAID controller itself does.

When I installed XP last time, I didn't hit F6 at the very beginning of the install process to install the SATA controller drivers from floppy like I normally do during the install process.

However, I did load the drivers from the XP update site. It's possible those aren't working right. I'm going to find the Silicon Image drivers from Silicon Image themself.

[levander]

Thanks resonance, pointing me to that BootVis utility was exactly what I needed. Turned out that I didn't have the ATA drive attached to the Serillel adapter (which was attached to the SATA RAID controller) jumped so that it was configured to be master. Which would be why BootVis reported I was spending 95 seconds initializing disks during bootup. It was timing out trying to recognize that disk.

[resonance]

Excellent stuff! I love a happy ending...

[jedjaxon]

hey guys i realize this was a very long time ago but a computer of mine is having a very similar problem. I was playing a game called World of Warcraft on it when it froze at a loading screen so i left it on thinking it would pass soon. Nothing changed after a few hours so i manually rebooted it and after the windows loading screen when it should be going to the log in screen I get a black screen and i cannot do anything. I tried starting in safe mode but it gave me some weird errors. I would really appreciate any help.

[marcuse]

Very weird... today ... exactly today, I too was playing World of Warcraft and it too [blame me for the swear filter] up my PC.

After it froze, I could not reboot into windows at all. I had several BSOD with nvatax64.sys (Nforce raid driver). Now I cannot even reinstall windows or reghost using norton ghost, as the comp keeps freezing...

Why the hell would warcraft do this?

[jedjaxon]

in your case ram or video card. I think i have determined that its the video card in mine and am getting it replaced.

[marcuse]

Finally! Finally I've sorted out the problem.

It took me at least 100 attempts at reboots and at least 50 times trying to install WinXp64 pro, but I got there.

What I did was move one of the SATA hard disk connections to another port. Either the cables had worked themselves loose somehow, or one of the ports had died.

Either way, things seem to work now. I hope this helps someone else - if you have intermittant installing problems and freezes, try moving the SATA to another port.