computer tech help!

T77911S · 04-23-2009, 05:05 AM

i am working on a friends lenovo desktop computer with XP. the computer boots normal up to the welcome screen, after you click the user, it loads the settings, then the display goes blank. the mouse arrow is still there and it moves, i can bring up the task manager but that is it. it does the same thing in safe mode. i got the recovery menu to come up and i restored back to a month ago and the same thing. i checked the bios, there was a setting for the display, it was set to PEG? never heard of it. there were 2 other options, one was PCI and i forget the other. i set it to PCI and no change. none of the windows short cut keys would bring up any other screen.
her CD rom is broken too, so i cant do anything with the windows cd yet, but if anyone has some ideas until i can get a CD rom in there it would be appreciated.

i changed a display setting on a computer once and lost the display, i think i got it back from the command prompt but i cant remember how i did it.

T77911S · 04-23-2009, 05:10 AM

i found out was PEG is.
PCI express graphics card.

Joeaksa · 04-23-2009, 07:51 AM

Delete the video card from the system and reboot. It should find a new device and re-install the video card.

If you continue to have the same issues then your driver for the video card may be bad. You can get a fresh one off of the internet, copy it to a thumb drive and use it to reinstall the driver.

T77911S · 04-23-2009, 08:07 AM

can this be done from the command prompt? thats all i can access

Scott R · Scott R's Garage

Quote:

Originally Posted by T77911S

can this be done from the command prompt? thats all i can access

Try running a new task from task manager while the screen is loading, run "explorer." You can also type "control panel" from the task starter and fix the display driver from there.

This could also be a task that's hanging prior to the actual desktop loading. Need to check that as well.

Joeaksa · 04-23-2009, 08:58 AM

Also try starting the computer in "safe mode" and go from there.

T77911S · 04-23-2009, 09:14 AM

ah, forgot about the new task button on task manager. i will add that to my list.

exact same symptoms in safe mode.

robs944 · robs944's Garage

T77911S,
Did she have any symptoms or problems prior to this happening? Any new hardware or software installed prior to this?

Unfortunately this could be anything from spyware to a hardware issue.

Personally if I were working on this situation I would remove the drive and slave it on another system, backup any important data, run a virus scan, disk check, etc on her drive. I know this may not be an option but if her CD-Rom does not work and you don't have a replacement than running explorer.exe from task manager like Scott R mentioned should get you around a bit.
How did you get the restore application to run?