Black screen after starting; PC does not respond -> reboot necessary
tommyflair
Join Date: 2013-08-31 Member: 187400Members, Reinforced - Shadow
Join Date: 2013-08-31 Member: 187400Members, Reinforced - Shadow
Hello Community,
since a few days I am having serious problems with starting the game.
Symptom:
Each and every time I start the game the screen turns black without mouse pointer / content / menu + game sound, some sounds e.g. Skype conversations continue. I think the game does not crash, but I am not so sure about it because non of my Inputs get executed e.g. ALT+TAB / ALT+F4 / CTRL+ALT+DEL, so I can not exclude a crash 100%.
The only solution to unfreeze my PC from this state is a hard reset.
I have found a thread with someone reporting a similar problem. He gets a black screen, followed by a crash report and a populated log.txt, which is different from my error. Thread found here: http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/131992/black-screen-then-log-txt-error#latest
Things I´ve tried:
Sidenotes:
My PC Specs are:
My Log.txt is pretty empty, maybe because the error occurs within the initial loading phase?
Any help is greatly appreciated.
since a few days I am having serious problems with starting the game.
Symptom:
Each and every time I start the game the screen turns black without mouse pointer / content / menu + game sound, some sounds e.g. Skype conversations continue. I think the game does not crash, but I am not so sure about it because non of my Inputs get executed e.g. ALT+TAB / ALT+F4 / CTRL+ALT+DEL, so I can not exclude a crash 100%.
The only solution to unfreeze my PC from this state is a hard reset.
I have found a thread with someone reporting a similar problem. He gets a black screen, followed by a crash report and a populated log.txt, which is different from my error. Thread found here: http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/131992/black-screen-then-log-txt-error#latest
Things I´ve tried:
- redownload -and install the game
- updated my graphics card driver to the latest version (13-4_win7_win8_64_dd_ccc_whql)
- tried out an outdated graphics card driver (13-1_vista_win7_win8_64_dd_ccc_whql)
- disabled my Firewall (Comodo Free Firewall Ver. 6.2.285401.2860)
- followed instructions from these threads:
Sidenotes:
- the game (Reinforced build) worked fine with my Win7 x64 Setup before
- I formatted my PC and installed Win8 x64 with all necessary programs / tools to play NS2
- I crawled the entire TechSupp Forum for a possible fix and tried everything which seemed remotely promising
- meanwhile I returned to Win7 x64 with the same issue as with Win8 shortly before
- NS2 is installed on my Primary (SSD) Harddrive while Steam and every other game resides on another Harddrive (
)
My PC Specs are:
- OS: Windows 7 64 Bit SP1 Build 7601
- Mainboard: Gigabyte GA-MA790FXT-UD5P
- CPU: AMD Phenom II x4 955 @ ~3,7GHz
- RAM: Kingston 2x 4GB 1666MHz
- Graphics Card: Sapphire ATI Radeon VAPOR-X HD 7970 GHz Edition
- DirectX 11
My Log.txt is pretty empty, maybe because the error occurs within the initial loading phase?
Content of file: C:\Users\Moe\AppData\Roaming\Natural Selection 2\log.txt
Date: 09/04/13
Time: 14:20:05:
Build 254
Windows 7 64-bit (build 7601)
Error: PhysX: Invalid Cuda context!
Steam initialized
Num displays: 1
I have attached the tech_support.zip file.Date: 09/04/13
Time: 14:20:05:
Build 254
Windows 7 64-bit (build 7601)
Error: PhysX: Invalid Cuda context!
Steam initialized
Num displays: 1
Any help is greatly appreciated.
Comments
Good chance they will. Its just that usb can freeze up while windows kernel is still willing to work.
Also ive noticed on my rig it took a while being black screen while it compiled shaders for the ingame menu.
Perhaps there are issues with that for you, unfortunately ns2 doesnt have a non pretty menu to test in so far I know.
There's a really neat tool for occasions such as this (the default windows alt+f4 is total crap), it's called SuperF4 and it's a simple script that runs in the background from windows startup, you use the key combo ctrl+alt+f4 and it'll immediately kill any process that currently has focus (might close explorer.exe but you can just restart this). Just Google it and download it, I've found it so incredibly helpful with processes that become unresponsive.
While I'm not sure this help with exactly your issue, I did get a somewhat similar issue when I accidentally switched to OpenGL from D3D9 in the graphics menu. It caused a black screen at startup and I couldn't do much. I resolved it by going to Startup_options.xml and changing the <graphics> value from OpenGL to D3D9.
I don't think this is actually related to your issue, but who knows, maybe it is.
How exactly did you "return" ?
Did you format the drive and reinstall? or something else..
I ask because windows 8 drivers don't play well with NS2 all the time..
First of all: NS2 starts now and I can play now (with some minor lag spikes) .... but I dont know why.
Yesterday night, before turning off my PC, I wanted to try and start NS2 again .. because the outcome was the same the last few days: shuting down the PC or turning it off after a NS2 crash. BUT I saw the mouse pointer and after a few seconds the main menu. I have absolutely no idea why it works now.
My only guess is, that my Mainboard (specifically the Southbridge) is acting strange ... maybe it´s broken. I had minor problems with USB devices and my Ethernet Ports before, so @DC_Darkling s guess could be hitting the spot. I guess that I have to buy a new mainboard .. but not before DDR4 hits the consumer markets
Thanks again for your time and I am sorry, that I can not provide a 100% accurate solution for my problem for people, who experience the same issue.
@Added: my Startup_options.xml was almost empty. It had no parameters in the existing outlines and no <graphics> outline
@IronHorse: by returning to Win7, I meant a clean reinstall after formatting my primary disk, exactly as you mentioned
I'd be weary however, of the cause leading to something else down the road.
See you in game!
Also iirc all modern motherboards no longer have a southbridge.
Before giving up your motherboard, just see if you can check with ps2
quick update: since the latest (two) builds, my game runs pretty crisp, hope more people in this forum can report the same