Screen goes blank after windows splash screen

[TorturedChaos]

I think this is the right place to put this.

So I have a friends computer here. It boots up seemingly ok, but after the windows splash screen in goes blank, but a black screen, but the screen is still on. You hear the fans spin up to full speed for a bit, and everything then sounds like its running fine....just no picture

So i did some googling and I found another person with the same issue and it was caused by a faulty video card. So I put in a crappy video card i had laying around. Still get the same issue.

Next I tried booting to the last know good configuration. Same issue.

So i tired booting in same mode. I hangs on Windows\System32\Drivers\Mup.sys

If it helps the video card that was in there i think is a GeForce MX4000.

I do know its a Windows xp home system

Only other thing I know is its a custom built machine. It was running fine until a few days ago. My friend says he thinks the machine has over heated 3 or 4 times in the past.

Hope someone can help.

thanks

 

[tw0rld]

Was the computer recently updated with a new service pack?

 

[TorturedChaos]

Was the computer recently updated with a new service pack?

Possibly. My friend isn't sure if he did or not, but he said he does do the windows updates occasionally.

Any way to check w/o being able to see anything on the monitor??

-EDIT-

I just talked to my friend and he said he does know the machine has an AMD processor. I noticed that a search on "SP3 issues" came up with having to do with AMD MoBo and/or processors.

I didn't though find a fix for this specific issue.

 

[tweakboy]

Definitely a video driver issue. Boot into safe mode uninstalled your graphics drivers,, boot back into normal and install drivers,, let us know how it goes,,!!

 

[TorturedChaos]

Definitely a video driver issue. Boot into safe mode uninstalled your graphics drivers,, boot back into normal and install drivers,, let us know how it goes,,!!

I thought the same thing too but......

...So i tired booting in same mode. I hangs on Windows\System32\Drivers\Mup.sys....

Is there a way i can removed the video driver issue w/o going into safe mode??

 

[tw0rld]

read reply #7 on this thread(external link); http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread23887.html. this is the reason why i asked if the system was recently updated. I don't know if this will help, but posted it just to give you another option.

 

[TorturedChaos]

read reply #7 on this thread(external link); http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread23887.html. this is the reason why i asked if the system was recently updated. I don't know if this will help, but posted it just to give you another option.

Well like i said it might have had SP3 installed on it. I know that has been popping up on all my machines update list. I have held off on doing it though, don't know if bad things will happen. But I will give a try what it suggest in the link you posted. Thanks!


-UPDATE-

Well I tried what was in post #7 of that link, and no go. I hit CTRL+ALT+DEL and I get nothing on the screen still.

 

[TorturedChaos]

Well I decided to look into where the computer hangs on a safe mode boot.

I did some searching on the "Mup.sys" in hangs on, and found a couple of idea's. Just waiting to get his xp home disk from him so I can try them. I'll post back here then i guess.

 

[uskrewed]

I actually just had this problem on my fiance's laptop. It happened after I tried to install a(n incorrect) PCI driver. I _think_ MUP.sys is just the last file that loads before windows boots, so that may not be the problem. Anywho, if you can't fix it (how could you unless you can somehow boot it up) you're going to have to backup all of his files and just reformat, or at least that's what I did. What I didn't try (because it's a long shot and I didn't have it) was to pop in the XP cd and try the "repair" feature. You may want to try that.

 

[TorturedChaos]

I FIXED IT!!

Turns out there was a bad sector on the hdd in just the wrong spot.

Here is what i did:
Found a guide about mup.sys crashes. First possible cause: HDD corruption or failure. So i booted into the recovery console off the xp home disk, and ran chkdsk /p.

It came up with "1 or more errors where found on the disk." So i ran chkdsk /r (this forces it to try and recover lost sectors). Took it a good 2hrs to run, but after that exited the recovery console, and booted in Normal mode. AND POOF!!!! I have a desktop again.

Although now I'm worried that the HDD might be going bad. Time to run some test on it. Any one have some good recommendations to test its health??

 

[kimsland]

Well done :grinthumb

If CheckDisk finds a bad spot, there's no fix other than to backup and replace the HardDrive (then to re-install Windows)

Although CheckDisk and even format, report that it can repair (or try to repair) a bad spot, in actual fact once you get one bad spot, you will soon get more.

Also I don't like how the CPU has been overheated a number of times, not sure how much money I'd spend on it.

 

[rf6647]

This post cites two tools for recovering bad blocks: SpinRite6 & HDD Regenerator.

https://www.techspot.com/vb/post648783-8.html

 

[tw0rld]

Well done :grinthumb

If CheckDisk finds a bad spot, there's no fix other than to backup and replace the HardDrive (then to re-install Windows)

Although CheckDisk and even format, report that it can repair (or try to repair) a bad spot, in actual fact once you get one bad spot, you will soon get more.

Also I don't like how the CPU has been overheated a number of times, not sure how much money I'd spend on it.

Here! Here!