Thread: black screen after the welcome to windows screen

computer sometimes does not boot up after the welcome to windows screen is displayed. it is simply a black screen, but the monitor light stays lit green, it doesnt flash or turn orange. i dont have a video card to test swap it with. i currently have an oem 128 mb ati video card. i have never used it for gaming. i did a seagate seatools test on the hd, it reported no problems. the power supply is brand new enermax 400 watts. the computer is 3 yrs old, windows xp, 2.6 ghz, 512 mb. anyone recommend a sisoft sandra stress test? any response is appreciated.

thanks,

sk

Try running Memtest86+ on it overnight and see if you get any errors. Also, search around on the motherboard and video card for blown capacitors. Bad caps will probably look something like the following image:



...However, they can also manifest as merely bulging at the top, or sometimes explode out of the bottom which can be tricky to spot.