ED#113 : Microsoft Windows 7 Black Screen Of Death!

Amidst the many favourable reports of Windows 7 beta, many techies were eager to upgrade from Windows Vista to Windows 7. After all, those who tested it were enthusiastic enough to label it as "the operating system Windows Vista was meant to be".

However, it appears that even experienced techies can expect to hit some road bumps on their way to installing Windows 7. Let's see what some of our techies experienced...

Chai's Experience

Our forum administrator, Chai, had a very tough time installing Windows 7. It was, in this opinion, the toughest operating system he had ever installed, and he has installed all kinds of operating systems from Windows 3.1 to Windows Server 2003 and even OpenSUSE.

By right, installing Windows 7 should have been a piece of cake - very few user interactions are required during the installation process and it comes with a plethora of default hardware drivers that allow the user to set it up right out of the box. At least, that is what you should experience.

Unfortunately for Chai, he had an absolutely horrid time installing Windows 7. Despite numerous tries, he kept getting a black screen of death after completing the installation process. The black screen appeared right after the "Starting Windows" splash screen.

He tried all sorts of remedies - booting into safe mode, enable VGA mode, unplug all USB devices, etc. He even searched Google for solutions. Nothing worked!

Finally, by chance, he managed to boot into Windows 7. FINALLY. However, after making some changes, he rebooted it only to be confronted by the same, blasted black screen of death.

He happened to have two monitors - a Dell 2001FP and a BenQ G2400W. Out of ideas, he thought he would try swapping monitors, as ludicrous as it may seem. After all, why should a monitor prevent Windows 7 from booting up? But the swap did the trick. It was the Dell monitor that "caused" the black screen.

Doesn't make much sense, does it? Well, the monitor was not actually the problem. After he upgraded to the latest ATI Catalyst driver, the problem disappeared! In short, it was the default ATI graphics driver that was the cause of the black screen of death.

Chai wasn't the only one affected though... Next : goldfries' Experience... and What's Going On?

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