New
#1
Start up/Shutdown problems
where to start...
In December I installed a GTX 980 in my machine and since then started getting strange behavior randomly at Start up. it didn't happen every start so I could live with it for a while but it was starting to bug me.
As I have PC set to auto logon, it would start and then pause at the screen in between the logon screen and desktop and think about it for a while, and then instead of loading desktop it would give me a blank desktop and no taskbar. Cursor works but not a lot more, Ctrl Alt Del brings up the lock screen and if I select shutdown or restart it would turn screen off but PC would just stay on and not shut off regardless of how long I leave it. I would have to hit reset at this stage amd then PC would start as if nothing was wrong.
I solved this error once by uninstalling Nvidia drivers using DDU in safe mode, and allowing windows to use its defaults instead of the drives off Nvidia site.
This fixed it for a few weeks until a windows update seemed to cause it to start happening again. As the drivers in control panel appeared to be the ones windows had installed the previous time, I started looking for alternate causes for the problem.
Microsoft weren't very helpful, they just suggested I see if a clean boot works but that doesn't help me work out what program is the cause.
I asked on Tomshardware and they suggested I uninstall & reinstall an Intel management program, reinstall Nvidia drivers again or do a fresh install. I have done all of their suggestions now, though I ran a reset (settings>update & security>Recovery>reset this pc (I kept my files)) instead of a fresh install since I couldn't work out how to boot PC from USB so I took this route. It isn't obvious in the BIOS.
On Tuesday I did the reset and start up seemed to be fine. I haven't installed that many programs yet as I wasn't sure.. mainly as shutdowns were still strange.
Another problem I had noticed was shut down takes about 20 seconds now and it used to be about 5 a few months ago. I have a Samsung EVO 850 SSD so it should be faster than that. This problem seemed to live through the reset so I was curious what was happening there, I figured the reset would fix any problems I had.
Anyway, today the PC did the "no desktop at start up trick" again and I was not amused. The reset didn't fix it at all
I reset BIOS in December, is it possible there is a setting there that is causing this? It is set to defaults.
Is there anyway I can figure out what is going on?
If I run the reset but tell it to delete all my files, will it only delete the boot drive or, since i have my documents and music etc on a separate drive, and the windows libraries are mapped to them, will it delete all those too?
Last edited by colif; 25 Feb 2016 at 23:30.