Black screen with blinking cursor

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I booted up my computer 6-25-19 and it showed the HP splash screen, then went to a black screen with blinking cursor. I powered OFF computer, did 60 second hard reset, powered it ON and the computer booted normal.

Last windows updates were installed 5-15-19.
The updates were for April, May.

Any ideas what could of created the black screen with blinking cursor?

The only other recent update was the Firefox browser to 67.0.4 on 6-22-19

Thanks,
Sparky

Dell, W10 Professional, 64-bit, Intel Core i7 Quad, Group A

HP, W7 Home Premium, 64-bit, AMD Phenom II, Group A

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A second reboot is the standard Windows fix after updates. Are you sure Windows didn’t sneak an update in?

All you need now is an image backup just in case.

cheers, Paul

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Looking at installed updates all I see is the April, May updates on 6-15-19 and an adobe reader update on 6-16-19. And the daily MSE updates.

The only other recent update was the Firefox browser to 67.0.4 on 6-22-19

Dell, W10 Professional, 64-bit, Intel Core i7 Quad, Group A

HP, W7 Home Premium, 64-bit, AMD Phenom II, Group A

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Any number of things it could be, but as it happened between the HP splash screen and recognizable Windows screens… well. Could be a disk spin-up delay, could be the CMOS battery… could be an inconsistent power management state after a suspend or hibernate… or could be Windows updates, or even a security software thing if you happen to have a boot protection in there.

So, it’s not automatically an abnormal state if the system recovers by itself fairly soon, but…

How long was it in that state anyway?

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“How long was it in that state anyway?”

About 15 seconds. Then I shut it down with the power button.

Dell, W10 Professional, 64-bit, Intel Core i7 Quad, Group A

HP, W7 Home Premium, 64-bit, AMD Phenom II, Group A

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My record so far from one of these is about 2 hours… and then by itself it continued bootup, crashed and restarted back to waiting.

The problem was a non-boot disk that had developed a shortcut in the data lines. That in turn pulled enough current from the disk interface chip that…

Well. Fun to debug. Was an old server.

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[the_Unforgiven]

Your computer is not alone doing that, welcome to the world of tech; the more complex something is, the more chance it has to play up.  I find drinking helps sometimes, or chewing gum.

Case in point – https://www.itnews.com.au/news/shaky-software-causes-huge-spike-in-bank-outages-rba-527293

“Ageing, complex systems “pose a significant risk”.”

How old is the HDD?  Run a chkdsk on it, or check SMART info using CrytalDiskInfo

have a good 1 cheers

• This reply was modified 5 years, 10 months ago by the_Unforgiven.
• This reply was modified 5 years, 10 months ago by the_Unforgiven.

1 user thanked author for this post.

wavy

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How old is the HDD?

A 2011 Hitachi model.

I have S.M.A.R.T. feature in the SpeedFan program everything checks out OK.

Dell, W10 Professional, 64-bit, Intel Core i7 Quad, Group A

HP, W7 Home Premium, 64-bit, AMD Phenom II, Group A

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Given that your HDD is 8 years old, it might be worth checking it with HD Tune. A couple of times, this program has served to tell me that a drive was in trouble even though the S.M.A.R.T. data seemed to show it was OK.

Unless you want the trial of their Pro version, I suggest you download the free version, which is a little down the page, just above their Drive Power Manager.

 

Keep Running Windows 7 Safely for Years to Come  
Make Windows 10 look and work like Windows 7

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My HP G62 does tha nearly every time I boot up. It never lasts more than about 10 to 15 seconds. The first time I saw that I panicked and hit the power button, and started over. Everything was fine that time. after a few mor days of shutting down at night, it happened again. That time it lasted about 10 seconds and went on to finish booting up on its own. Now it only happens when I have it shup down for more than about 6 hours. I ASSUME (Yes I know what it means.) that the CMOOS battery is going out. Right now I’m just being a bit too lazy to change it as it is tough to get to on this laptop.

Best of luck with yours.

Dave

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So you think the CMOS battery is going out?
I just replace the motherboard 9-2018.
It was refurbished, you would think they put in a new CMOS battery.
It is the computers 3rd motherboard, which includes the original.

The computer booted up today 6-26-19 normally. Go figure.
I’m going to need a lot of gum and drinks if I can’t trust the computer to function correctly.

I thought the CMOS battery is rechargeable.

Dell, W10 Professional, 64-bit, Intel Core i7 Quad, Group A

HP, W7 Home Premium, 64-bit, AMD Phenom II, Group A

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“I thought the CMOS battery is rechargeable.”

No, it’s usually a CR-2032 but could be different in some machines, have seen a CR-1220 used.

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This is a regular occurrence on my W7 desktop ever since I had the HD replaced with an SSD.  My workaround has been to hit F12 as it’s starting up to get to the boot screen (?), scroll the cursor down to the SSD, and hit return.  Works every time for me – YMMV.  Good luck.

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