Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Investigates Windows 7 "Black Screen of Death"
duguk writes "Microsoft has confirmed that it is investigating a problem described as the 'black screen of death,' which affects Windows 7 — and reports suggest it affects Vista and XP, too. The firm said it was looking into reports that suggest its latest security update, released on Tuesday 25 November, caused the problem. The error means that users of Windows 7 and earlier operating systems see a totally black screen after logging on to the system." Update: 12/01 22:35 GMT by KD : Microsoft now says that its November Windows updates are not causing the BlackSOD: "The company has found those reports to be inaccurate and our comprehensive investigation has shown that none of the recently released updates are related to the behavior described in the reports."
Securing windows is like pushing water uphill with a sharp stick.
:-) No updates since 2003, system just stays up.
Firewall the bugger & leave it be. Works for me
If I had an Ass, I'd call it Fanny Bottom, then I could slap my Ass; Fanny Bottom, on the Arse.
On my MSI Wind netbook running Windows 7, I once woke the system from sleep and got a black screen. The machine was still working, the mouse cursor was on screen and moved with the touchpad, there was disk activity, it connected to the wireless network, caps lock/num lock were still responsive, but nothing else appeared on the screen and nothing I did made it work. I had to manually power the system off. I was able to wake the system from sleep many times before and after without any problems.
I didn't notice any updates that the problem could have been correlated with.
I had this happen a year or so ago on a Server 2003 box and never could find the actual cause. I don't know if the fix is the same in this case, but in my case it was simple:
Check out [HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Colors] - if everything is set to [0 0 0], modify those values to something other than black. The easiest thing to do, actually, is to export that key from another box that's good, then import on the box that's got the problem.
"I turn away with fright and horror from the lamentable evil of functions which do not have derivatives."
I believe the change was implemented in order to prevent phosphor burn-in on older CRT monitors.
Actually, blue was chosen deliberately because zinc sulfide silver (blue phosphor in CRTs) is more resistant to burnout than the other phosphors, thus ensuring more even color rendition over time. It was a feature, not a bug :-). With no burnout problems in LCD panels, they went with black.
Set your phasers on "funky"!
I've been getting a black screen on startup since Vista. I now run 7 and still get it. I run a top of the line machine and it black screens for a couple of minutes every startup as long as my Western Digital external harddrives are connected. I disconnect them and everything's dandy. MS has known about this particular black screen for years, and still no fix. It's like Windows has to power the externals off and on several times before it will let me log in. Some sort of cruel joke.
It also invalidated my install of Office 2007. Reinstalling the OS, patching and then reinstalling Office 2007 worked but what a pain.
I just unplugged my mass storage device (card reader) and it popped right up. Couldn't use the card reader after that though, but everything else was ok.