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#1
Black Screen, No Cursor (Multiple Categories)
Hello all. This is a weird, convoluted set of circumstances so please bear with me.
This past December my custom built computer, last rebuilt in 2013, suddenly Black Screened on me. Everything was up to date, no signs of weirdness before that. I turned the computer on, but it never appeared to finish loading windows, only showing a Black screen with no cursor. It is worth noting I have been using Windows 10 and keeping it updated (with a couple fresh installs since then) since the Windows 10 beta let me upgrade for free from Windows 7.
A few reboots later, I managed to get to the login screen, input my credentials, and see my desktop for the last time (this only happened once). After a few seconds the screen blinked Black a few times, and then went black again. A few more restarted later I got to the login screen but it black screened me again. After that the system never made it to the login screen again.
I was busy at the time, and by coincidence I had ordered a brand new HP Omen 15 laptop just a few days before, so I wasn't freaking out about it. I opened it up, yanked out my large storage HDD so I could use it as an external drive for the new computer. Then on the older Black Screened computer I tried wiping the entire main SDD, formatted it, and then tried to install again. There was a point (shortly after you choose not to use Cortana or One Drive, on the install screen with multiple options, like using Location and such) the screen went Black again.
After a few more tries of this, I gave up for the time being. After all, I had all my important files in the Cloud or on my external drive, and a brand new computer arriving.
My best guesses at that time:
-Probably not the Power Supply or the Motherboard, as the BIOS screen loads with no problems, and I can still boot from USB or a DVD/Bluray.
-Unlikely to be the graphics card because the display works correctly from the BIOS
-Possibly the SDD drive failing as I haven't experienced that yet.
Jump to the last few days. I had an old Windows 7 install disk so I put that in, and everything installed correctly, save for virtually no drivers working. After a quick USB fix for network access, the system worked with no problem. That seems to rule out all hardware problems, so I made a fresh install USB and tried to wipe the drive and do another fresh Windows 10 install.
Once again, I reach the same settings screen during install listed above, and the screen goes black. Reboots also load to a black screen. BIOS loads fine. Still no cursor.
I have no error codes and very little to go off of here. This system was working perfectly for years before mysteriously this happens. Anyone have any idea?