Rotating dots on blue background instead of default lock screen

A week ago I switched on my PC (Windows 10 Pro 64 bit with ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro graphics card) which had previously been working and on which I had made no changes. It went through the normal boot. There are 5 users and normally it gets to the default lock screen (beach from cave) which I hit enter to display the user list. But this time instead of the lock screen it displayed a blue screen with rotating dots. The dots sometimes made complete circles and sometimes started to make a circle get part way round then jump to the beginning. Mouse+keyboard was not responding. I could access the shared content from another PC. I had previously setup the PC to accept Remote Desktop connection. When I attempted Remote Desktop from my Windows phone my taskbar would load on my phone but the desktop would not and nothing responded. When I tried to access from my laptop it would not respond at all. I logged into safe mode and switched to the Microsoft Basic Display Adapter. This booted but took longer to get to the user list and didn't display the lock screen. Also the user list screen flickered blank and back on. I logged into a user. WIN+L triggered the user's lock screen, but never the default one. Edge displays a blank window but Chrome works correctly. I changed the default lock screen and tried with the ATI driver - same rotating dots. I have a spare nVidia card so I went back to safe mode, changed back to MS Basic Adapter, rebooted into normal mode, uninstalled the ATI software, shutdown, replaced the ATI card with a nVidia card, rebooted - but the same problem of rotating dots on blue background. I ran sfc /scannow which reported some corrupt files which it said it fixed but that didn't cure the problem. I ran chkdsk which found some problems which it fixed. I tried system restore but Windows 10 has never made a restore point! I never got round to making a repair disc. If I load with MS Basic Adapter then let Windows install the correct driver for ATI or nVidia card, the monitor changes to full resolution desktop but the taskbar doesn't appear and there are several black rectangles on the screen, niether mouse nor keyboard work, WIN+L causes the blue screen and rotating dots to appear. Anyone experienced the rotating dots? How did you fix them? All help greatly appreciated. Thanks, Kevin

A blue screen with rotating dots? That's the Windows loading screen, I get it everytime I boot my PC. (Not for too long, though)
Honestly I don't think it's a GPU problem, it looks like something is causing your Windows to load for a long time.

Margister said:

A blue screen with rotating dots? That's the Windows loading screen, I get it everytime I boot my PC. (Not for too long, though)
Honestly I don't think it's a GPU problem, it looks like something is causing your Windows to load for a long time.

I've googled this and checked out what others have done with a similar problem. In most cases Windows eventually loaded. I have left my PC on for 26 hours but it never got beyond the rotating blue dots.

Thanks for your detailed instructions. There is no fast startup option - but this could be because I've disabled hibernation in an attempt to get to the bottom of this problem. I attach a screen shot. I also attach the task manager start-up items: they take two shots because of the low resolution I'm having to use because of MS basic adapter.

To make sure we're talking about the same thing I took a video to upload - but the website wouldn't accept it so I attach a still from the video.

KevinAR said:

Thanks for your detailed instructions. There is no fast startup option - but this could be because I've disabled hibernation in an attempt to get to the bottom of this problem. I attach a screen shot. I also attach the task manager start-up items: they take two shots because of the low resolution I'm having to use because of MS basic adapter.

I have never seen that many things starting up with Windows that didn't have some issues. Do you really need all of that at start up?

I have at most 6 items on my start-up.


I would be almost willing to bet that something in your start-up programs is preventing completion. Try disabling them one at a time.

I disabled every item in the startup list - all at the same time - then allowed windows to automatically re-download the ATI driver. The monitor switched to full resolution but as on all previous times since this problem started (about a week ago) there was no taskbar or start button, several black rectangles appeared, I could move the mouse but clicking on icons had no response, pressing the start key and any letter didn't cause anything to happen apart from WIN+L which made the screen blue and the rotating dots.

I rebooted and the PC went through the usual boot procedure of windows logo and rotating dots then blue screen and rotating dots. I left the PC for several hours but nothing changed. So disabling all the startup items didn't have an impact.

Another thing I noticed, when the graphics adapter is back to MS basic and the PC is displaying the list of users, the screen goes black every minute or so then comes back on.

I've checked the event log for items recorded when it was in the rotating dots state. The following occurred regularly whilst the PC was sitting in the rotating dots state - but stopped happening once I rebooted into safe mode and changed the graphics adapter back to MS basic:

Log Name: Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-EventTracing/Admin
Source: Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-EventTracing
Date: 09/08/2016 17:46:01
Event ID: 2
Task Category: Session
Level: Error
Keywords: Session
User: SYSTEM
Computer: PLAYROOM-PC
Description:
Session "NetCfgTrace" failed to start with the following error: 0xC0000035
Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
<System>
<Provider Name="Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-EventTracing" Guid="{B675EC37-BDB6-4648-BC92-F3FDC74D3CA2}" />
<EventID>2</EventID>
<Version>0</Version>
<Level>2</Level>
<Task>2</Task>
<Opcode>12</Opcode>
<Keywords>0x8000000000000010</Keywords>
<TimeCreated SystemTime="2016-08-09T16:46:01.412527100Z" />
<EventRecordID>1588</EventRecordID>
<Correlation />
<Execution ProcessID="832" ThreadID="8008" />
<Channel>Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-EventTracing/Admin</Channel>
<Computer>PLAYROOM-PC</Computer>
<Security UserID="S-1-5-18" />
</System>
<EventData>
<Data Name="SessionName">NetCfgTrace</Data>
<Data Name="FileName">
</Data>
<Data Name="ErrorCode">3221225525</Data>
<Data Name="LoggingMode">268435461</Data>
</EventData>
</Event>

As did:

Log Name: Application
Source: Application Error
Date: 09/08/2016 19:56:56
Event ID: 1000
Task Category: (100)
Level: Error
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Computer: PLAYROOM-PC
Description:
Faulting application name: LogonUI.exe, version: 10.0.10586.0, time stamp: 0x5632d88c
Faulting module name: Windows.UI.Xaml.dll, version: 10.0.10586.494, time stamp: 0x5775e900
Exception code: 0xc000027b
Fault offset: 0x00000000006fd01b
Faulting process ID: 0x98c
Faulting application start time: 0x01d1f26fcc87a7cd
Faulting application path: C:\WINDOWS\system32\LogonUI.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Windows\System32\Windows.UI.Xaml.dll
Report ID: 7b6c68d9-3805-4c67-980b-1634f950cb11
Faulting package full name:
Faulting package-relative application ID:
Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
<System>
<Provider Name="Application Error" />
<EventID Qualifiers="0">1000</EventID>
<Level>2</Level>
<Task>100</Task>
<Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords>
<TimeCreated SystemTime="2016-08-09T18:56:56.402589200Z" />
<EventRecordID>771173</EventRecordID>
<Channel>Application</Channel>
<Computer>PLAYROOM-PC</Computer>
<Security />
</System>
<EventData>
<Data>LogonUI.exe</Data>
<Data>10.0.10586.0</Data>
<Data>5632d88c</Data>
<Data>Windows.UI.Xaml.dll</Data>
<Data>10.0.10586.494</Data>
<Data>5775e900</Data>
<Data>c000027b</Data>
<Data>00000000006fd01b</Data>
<Data>98c</Data>
<Data>01d1f26fcc87a7cd</Data>
<Data>C:\WINDOWS\system32\LogonUI.exe</Data>
<Data>C:\Windows\System32\Windows.UI.Xaml.dll</Data>
<Data>7b6c68d9-3805-4c67-980b-1634f950cb11</Data>
<Data>
</Data>
<Data>
</Data>
</EventData>
</Event>

And:



Log Name: System
Source: Service Control Manager
Date: 09/08/2016 19:52:23
Event ID: 7000
Task Category: None
Level: Error
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Computer: PLAYROOM-PC
Description:
The Net.Pipe Listener Adapter service failed to start due to the following error:
The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion.
Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
<System>
<Provider Name="Service Control Manager" Guid="{555908d1-a6d7-4695-8e1e-26931d2012f4}" EventSourceName="Service Control Manager" />
<EventID Qualifiers="49152">7000</EventID>
<Version>0</Version>
<Level>2</Level>
<Task>0</Task>
<Opcode>0</Opcode>
<Keywords>0x8080000000000000</Keywords>
<TimeCreated SystemTime="2016-08-09T18:52:23.074289300Z" />
<EventRecordID>400866</EventRecordID>
<Correlation />
<Execution ProcessID="824" ThreadID="2268" />
<Channel>System</Channel>
<Computer>PLAYROOM-PC</Computer>
<Security />
</System>
<EventData>
<Data Name="param1">Net.Pipe Listener Adapter</Data>
<Data Name="param2">%%1053</Data>
<Binary>4E0065007400500069007000650041006300740069007600610074006F0072000000</Binary>
</EventData>
</Event>

And:

Log Name: System
Source: Service Control Manager
Date: 09/08/2016 19:51:56
Event ID: 7009
Task Category: None
Level: Error
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Computer: PLAYROOM-PC
Description:
A timeout was reached (30000 milliseconds) while waiting for the RichVideo service to connect.
Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
<System>
<Provider Name="Service Control Manager" Guid="{555908d1-a6d7-4695-8e1e-26931d2012f4}" EventSourceName="Service Control Manager" />
<EventID Qualifiers="49152">7009</EventID>
<Version>0</Version>
<Level>2</Level>
<Task>0</Task>
<Opcode>0</Opcode>
<Keywords>0x8080000000000000</Keywords>
<TimeCreated SystemTime="2016-08-09T18:51:56.683646400Z" />
<EventRecordID>400860</EventRecordID>
<Correlation />
<Execution ProcessID="824" ThreadID="2316" />
<Channel>System</Channel>
<Computer>PLAYROOM-PC</Computer>
<Security />
</System>
<EventData>
<Data Name="param1">30000</Data>
<Data Name="param2">RichVideo</Data>
<Binary>520069006300680056006900640065006F000000</Binary>
</EventData>
</Event>

And:

Log Name: System
Source: Microsoft-Windows-TaskScheduler
Date: 09/08/2016 19:51:33
Event ID: 414
Task Category: Task Misconfiguration
Level: Warning
Keywords:
User: SYSTEM
Computer: PLAYROOM-PC
Description:
Task Scheduler service found a misconfiguration in the NT TASK\Microsoft\Windows\Media Center\OCURActivate definition. Additional Data: Error Value: %SystemRoot%\ehome\ehPrivJob.exe.
Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
<System>
<Provider Name="Microsoft-Windows-TaskScheduler" Guid="{DE7B24EA-73C8-4A09-985D-5BDADCFA9017}" />
<EventID>414</EventID>
<Version>0</Version>
<Level>3</Level>
<Task>414</Task>
<Opcode>0</Opcode>
<Keywords>0x4000000000000000</Keywords>
<TimeCreated SystemTime="2016-08-09T18:51:33.529551500Z" />
<EventRecordID>400841</EventRecordID>
<Correlation />
<Execution ProcessID="800" ThreadID="1300" />
<Channel>System</Channel>
<Computer>PLAYROOM-PC</Computer>
<Security UserID="S-1-5-18" />
</System>
<EventData Name="TaskMisconfigured">
<Data Name="TaskName">NT TASK\Microsoft\Windows\Media Center\OCURActivate</Data>
<Data Name="Parameter">%SystemRoot%\ehome\ehPrivJob.exe</Data>
</EventData>
</Event>

Have you deleted the Video Card from the Device manager, delete all of the drivers you installed and then reboot.

I think you have a driver issue with the video card.

To be certain I'd deleted the software I reverted to the ATI driver which behaved as last time: full resolution, no taskbar, windows key not working, nothing reacts to mouse clicks, black rectangles on the screen. I rebooted, rotating dots on blue screen which I left for several hours, rebooted into safe mode, uninstalled the ATI driver ticking the box to remove all software, then rebooted. PC used MS basic adapter. Rebooted into normal mode. Windows loaded but as when I previously used MS basic adapter the screen listing users occasionally clicked black then back on. Loaded a user (they all behave the same). After an hour or two Windows automatically downloaded the drivers. At that point the PC behaved as per the first sentence above so I rebooted into safe mode and uninstalled the driver.