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Windows 8.1, black screen with movable cursor

Here’s the scenario, morning wake up and find out my Windows 8.1 is displaying a black screen upon boot, no login screen, but a movable white cursor, random clicks will display the small loading icons?

Problem :

  1. Black screen upon boot, movable cursor.
  2. Unable to display the Windows login screen.

Detail :

  1. Windows 8.1 64 bits on SSD hard disk.
  2. RAM 16G, NVIDIA, with dual display.
  3. Windows in sleep mode overnight.
  4. No program has installed recently.
  5. No abnormal high pitch sound from the computer, means nothing wrong with the hardware.

Try booting in safe mode, and tried a few solutions, but still unable to display the login screen :

  1. Uninstall Antivirus
  2. Uninstall suspected program
  3. Disk check
  4. Replace with a set of working Windows registry
  5. Disabled all start up program
  6. System restore

Solution

Finally, this solution works for me :

Boot into safe mode again, roll back the graphic card driver, restart and login screen is back 🙂

1. Boot into safe mode.
2. Go to device manager – display adapters – double clicks on the graphic card driver

windows-8-black-screen-1

3. Select “Driver” tab, clicks on the “Roll Back Driver” button.

windows-8-black-screen

P.S My Windows graphic card is rolled back, that’s why it’s disabled and in grey color.

4. Restart, done.

How to boot in safe mode?
Normally, we press F8 upon boot, but SSD is too fast, it may not able to receive your F8 keystroke. To solve it, just restart PC few times, Windows will detect the start up problem and display recovery screen.

Select Advance options -> Windows Startup Settings -> Restart, and the PC will enter into the safe mode selection screen.

Follow up
I believed this is caused by the NVIDIA automatic update during PC in sleep mode. To avoid this problem to happen again, turn off the NVIDIA automatic update feature.

Go NVIDIA control panel -> Help -> updates, select “Preferences” tab, uncheck the “automatically check for updates”.

windows-8-black-screen-2

About Author

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Founder of Mkyong.com, love Java and open source stuff. Follow him on Twitter. If you like my tutorials, consider make a donation to these charities.

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Leo
4 years ago

I have the same exact problem, but unable to boot into safe mode. I can get into the bios settings, but it won’t let me into boot options. I have cycled power a couple of dozen times so far and can’t get anything but that black screen with cursor. Interestingly, if I leave the PC on, it goes into a sleep mode and the cursor disappears until I touch the mouse. I have tried blindly logging in to see if that would get me somewhere, but no good.

terry
7 years ago

what u can simple do is login then hold ctrl alt del and will show task manager then jus click any running programme and right click it .then select open file location and will show a file on windows explorer on that jus go to yo program files and type windows explorer after u find t double click it and boom u r in

Himiko715
8 years ago

I have the same problem only I don’t have NVIDIA only Intel Graphics what should I do?

Seth Agee
8 years ago

After I put it into safe mode, I was able to put it into safe mode but after I logged in, I wasn’t able to click anything! help!

Darkknight
6 years ago

My laptop is Toshiba Intel core i5 ram 4gb and memory 750 windows 8.1 that show me a black screen with movable cursor but when I stay a few munies and I hold ctrl+f4 that show me the normal screen but the pc is so lagging
Help me to fix this problem pleaz Harryup.