Help! PC boots into BIOS fine but afterwards delivers a black screen

[Spice_Dealer]

Recently I've been having this annoying problem with my build. Everytime I boot it's like a lottery of wherever it will go into Windows - Most of the time it just displays the MSI GAMING splashscreen and then goes into a black, empty screen. There is still fans running and the motherboard LED is not displaying a debug code, just the temps as if normal. I can enter bios and change settings just fine but when I exit, bam, black screen. When it does work there is a circular loading icon for a few seconds and then it boots into Windows fine.

Things I thought it might be and tried:

- Devices being plugged into the wrong USB slot - tried moving them around, usually no difference.
- Video output changing to another displayport - Moving from the graphics card to mobo dp and back, no effect.
- Power supply? Well everything is running just fine hardware wise so it would seem not so.
- Ram clocked too high - stock was 2133mhz knocked it down to 1866 and no improvements.

My specs are:

MSI Gaming 7 297
G3258 Pentium
Corsair AX760
MSI 270x 4gb
Corsair H75 waterloop
8gb Gskill Ripjaws 2133mhz
Windows 8.1

This is a very frustrating issue and I would appreciate any suggestions at all.

Thanks

[starkyller]

Bad overclock maybe?

Reboot the bios. Enable XMP

See if the hdd sata cable is well connected, or ,maybe you got a bad hdd.

See if your displayport cable is broken or something.

Maybe try it out without the gpu

[Spice_Dealer]

Well it's running at 4.4 atm but I've had it at 4.6 stable before, keyboard is detected and displayport cable definitely isn't broken. One thing I've maybe thought - I'm running a Samsung Evo for OS and a WD green for storage - is it possible that it's trying to boot from the WD Green which has no OS, hence the black screen? It's not problem that doesn't eventually resolve itself, this is what I don't understand, hence how I'm typing on it right now. About to update to v1.5 bios now which promises better G3258 compatibility so we'll see how that goes.

Thanks

[starkyller]

See if the ssd is in first on boot order

[Spice_Dealer]

I did the following things and it seems to be working fine now!

- Put Windows Boot manager in boot order 1 and then SSD in 2, disabled any other options
- Enabled XMP
- Updated bios to 1.5

Now seems to be working fine but will confirm after a few tests. Many thanks!

[Spice_Dealer]

Okay I am still having some issue, it seems if I hit f11 on startup and select 'Windows Boot Manager PO: Samsung' etc it will boot fine 100% as far as I can see. I know it sounds petty but it's an annoyance to have to do this every startup, especially when it is now the only option available in boot order priority. Any ideas on what may be preventing this from being the default option?

[starkyller]

Try to use the boot manager from the BIOS not the one on windows

[Spice_Dealer]

When I put my SSD (where the OS is installed) into order #1, or if I boot to the SSD, I get the 'reboot and select proper boot device' error.

Choosing 'Windows Boot Manager PO: Samsung Evo 250gb' or putting it in #1 boot order is the only thing that works, and even then not all the time. Most of the time it just loads a black screen.

This problem is becoming increasingly frustrating and I am spending ages of time a day just booting.

And I am using the BIOS boot loader.

[starkyller]

Well I would like to help more but I don't know any more what to tell... contact msi support

One more thing turn the pc on with the sata power from the hdd off

[Millennium]

I think that's a hardware problem or at a stretch a bios problem given the erratic video output-s. Being display port though, something I've not tried, I'm not as sure as I'd like to be.

If you have the option in your bios, try turning off the VGA from uefi first option (or just select the other setting on a UEFI vga boot option). My p67 has an option like that. Otherwise, try using something other than displayport output if you can (perhaps hook it up to a TV with DVI to HDMI and see if that always works). You should use your GPU/offboard graphics cards ports, not the motherboard one, as you bought the GPU and/nor it's an intel CPU.

I'd suggest having another VGA adaptor to hand to properly rule out yours as a factor if that last step didn't work. MSI UK tech support will give you good advice too. However, see what appears here as we may just possibly fix this for you.