Long black screen during cold boot

[n1ghtl1fe]

I have had my g74sx for a few months now but for some reason the past few weeks I have been getting a black screen after the windows logo and before the welcome screen when booting. I have tried a clean windows 7 install a couple of times with no success. Everything loads fine until i install all the latest drivers. I have googled this issue to death and was hoping maybe someone has had a similar issue with their laptop here. If anyone has any insight it would be greatly appreciated.

[n1ghtl1fe]

np and thank you for helping out. If i cant get it resolved by going through drivers i have installed one more time I will try another clean install. if i get the same results i might end up giving asus a call : /

i noticed you left out the kb filter? any reason why?

[BrodyBoy]

n1ghtl1fe wrote:
np and thank you for helping out. If i cant get it resolved by going through drivers i have installed one more time I will try another clean install. if i get the same results i might end up giving asus a call : /

i noticed you left out the kb filter? any reason why?

Because it's unnecessary. Windows' generic keyboard filter works just fine, and all Asus' proprietary keyboard functions are handled by the ATK driver package.

[n1ghtl1fe]

do you think its possible that the version of windows 7 home premium i downloaded and installed thru USB could be causing an odd issue like this?

I would do another clean install but honestly its been 3 times now with the same results. I dont see much changing.

[gilbert]

ok guys i just got back my g74sx-bbk8 after replacing the lcd and im happy to say that my long black screen issue is gone, im using the envidia 296.10 driver version now and no problem what so ever, i did not made any changes to my drivers at all and once i got it back from asus the issue was gone , i even put in my ssd to test and it work perfect, i just upgraded to the new driver version and no problem,,,, sorry i can't help you guys to solve this problem but it looks like in my case the problem was the lcd once it got replace the problem was gone.........

[n1ghtl1fe]

Ok, so its been a couple weeks since my last post but I finally solved the issue thats been plaguing my G74 for months now.

I followed BrodyBoy's suggestion on what to install and in what order after another clean install and it gave me the same issue. I did however do yet aNoThEr clean install of windows 7 and took my time installing each driver in safe mode (the ones that let me install in SM) to try and find when exactly the long boot issue starts as well as doing some boot tracing and windows performance toolkit . It sucked and was time consuming but this is what I did step by step. It took me way to long to resolve this issue so I hope by posting this I can save some other poor soul the trouble. (based off BrodyBoys post with some changes):

1. Go into BIOS Setup and load optimized defaults
2. Windows OEM fresh install
3. Check the hardware IDs for your WLAN and touchpad devices to confirm their manufacturers. Make sure that you are installing the appropriate drivers.
4. Intel chipset 9.3.0.1019
5. Intel RST (without Intel Control Center)
6. Intel MEI 7.0.4.1197
7. nVidia graphics driver (THAT CAME ON DRIVER DISC, longer boot but not as bad as previously)
8. Fresco USB3.0 3.5.24.0 (plus the AsPatch)
9. Realtek HD audio 2.67
10. Touchpad (This took some playing with the latest drivers eventually 9.1.3.5 proved most stable: Sentelic)
11. Realtek LAN 7.050
12. Realtek Multi-card Reader 6.1.7600.10001
13. WLAN driver (THIS is what i believe may have caused part of the problem. My Atheros AR9002WB-1NG WiFi card was conflicting with Nvidia's drivers, Once I installed the v9.2.1.470 driver I got the LONG black screen on boot as well as spotty wifi connections)
-What i did was do a full removal of nvidia drivers/software, then installed latest from nvidias site
-Then I installed the wireless drivers that came on my Asus Driver disc, followed by installing the latest drivers 9.2.1.470 again without removing the previous driver or deleting any of the Athreos drivers.
14. ATK Package 1.0.0015

After that, I rebooted faster but still a 15 second black screen but with no issues with any of my devices, the boot was still a little slower than I would have liked so I let all my windows updates install and then:

-Enabled Boot Logging in MSCONFIG, this places a text file in your c:\windows folder that tells you exactly what drivers load and what dont/give errors, notepad file is called "ntbtlog.txt"

-I also used windows Event Viewer to see issues I was having during boot and boot times. This is what helped me pin the issue on Nvidia's drivers, Atheros card, and Sentellic touchpad 9.1.7.7 drivers (stick to 9.1.3.5).
Guide:
http://itexpertvoice.com/home/what%E2%80%99s-taking-so-long-how-to-fight-slow-startup-times-in-windo...

Lastly I followed this guide using Windows Performance Toolkit, it trains your windows 7 ReadyBoot to load drivers and files faster on startup, through defragging and changing a few things. Your computer will restart 6 times and it takes about 25 min to complete. It was totally worth it though I now cold boot in 42 seconds on a 500gb HDD, not bad for having startup items and such. I restart in about 50 seconds.
I reccomend everyone checks this out to increase system stability and boot speed, shes even faster coming out of sleep and hibernate now.
Guide: (dont use the command prompt quote with "-drivers" just like this guide says it can cause BSOD on W7 and it did for me.
http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/140262-how-to-speed-up-boot-process-under-windows-vista-or-windows-7...

I hope this helps some of you, thanks everyone for your help with resolving this issue. For the record I did contact Asus Support RMA and they responded telling me to buy a new HDD bracket. Im glad this got resolved without me wasting money, just some time and some of this great community here.

[Arvizu360]

n1ghtl1fe wrote:
Ok, so its been a couple weeks since my last post but I finally solved the issue thats been plaguing my G74 for months now.

I followed BrodyBoy's suggestion on what to install and in what order after another clean install and it gave me the same issue. I did however do yet aNoThEr clean install of windows 7 and took my time installing each driver in safe mode (the ones that let me install in SM) to try and find when exactly the long boot issue starts as well as doing some boot tracing and windows performance toolkit . It sucked and was time consuming but this is what I did step by step. It took me way to long to resolve this issue so I hope by posting this I can save some other poor soul the trouble. (based off BrodyBoys post with some changes):

1. Go into BIOS Setup and load optimized defaults
2. Windows OEM fresh install
3. Check the hardware IDs for your WLAN and touchpad devices to confirm their manufacturers. Make sure that you are installing the appropriate drivers.
4. Intel chipset 9.3.0.1019
5. Intel RST (without Intel Control Center)
6. Intel MEI 7.0.4.1197
7. nVidia graphics driver (THAT CAME ON DRIVER DISC, longer boot but not as bad as previously)
8. Fresco USB3.0 3.5.24.0 (plus the AsPatch)
9. Realtek HD audio 2.67
10. Touchpad (This took some playing with the latest drivers eventually 9.1.3.5 proved most stable: Sentelic)
11. Realtek LAN 7.050
12. Realtek Multi-card Reader 6.1.7600.10001
13. WLAN driver (THIS is what i believe may have caused part of the problem. My Atheros AR9002WB-1NG WiFi card was conflicting with Nvidia's drivers, Once I installed the v9.2.1.470 driver I got the LONG black screen on boot as well as spotty wifi connections)
-What i did was do a full removal of nvidia drivers/software, then installed latest from nvidias site
-Then I installed the wireless drivers that came on my Asus Driver disc, followed by installing the latest drivers 9.2.1.470 again without removing the previous driver or deleting any of the Athreos drivers.
14. ATK Package 1.0.0015

After that, I rebooted faster but still a 15 second black screen but with no issues with any of my devices, the boot was still a little slower than I would have liked so I let all my windows updates install and then:

-Enabled Boot Logging in MSCONFIG, this places a text file in your c:\windows folder that tells you exactly what drivers load and what dont/give errors, notepad file is called "ntbtlog.txt"

-I also used windows Event Viewer to see issues I was having during boot and boot times. This is what helped me pin the issue on Nvidia's drivers, Atheros card, and Sentellic touchpad 9.1.7.7 drivers (stick to 9.1.3.5).
Guide:
http://itexpertvoice.com/home/what%E2%80%99s-taking-so-long-how-to-fight-slow-startup-times-in-windo...

Lastly I followed this guide using Windows Performance Toolkit, it trains your windows 7 ReadyBoot to load drivers and files faster on startup, through defragging and changing a few things. Your computer will restart 6 times and it takes about 25 min to complete. It was totally worth it though I now cold boot in 42 seconds on a 500gb HDD, not bad for having startup items and such. I restart in about 50 seconds.
I reccomend everyone checks this out to increase system stability and boot speed, shes even faster coming out of sleep and hibernate now.
Guide: (dont use the command prompt quote with "-drivers" just like this guide says it can cause BSOD on W7 and it did for me.
http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/140262-how-to-speed-up-boot-process-under-windows-vista-or-windows-7...

I hope this helps some of you, thanks everyone for your help with resolving this issue. For the record I did contact Asus Support RMA and they responded telling me to buy a new HDD bracket. Im glad this got resolved without me wasting money, just some time and some of this great community here.

I did exactly what you mentioned but with Nvidia newest drivers 334.11 something like that and they seem to work, instead I didnt upgrade to the lastest atheros drivers. I just let them at the ones that came in the CD I got to thank you man. I was stuck with old drivers for over 2 years.

[Arvizu360]

Arvizu360 wrote:
I did exactly what you mentioned but with Nvidia newest drivers 334.11 something like that and they seem to work, instead I didnt upgrade to the lastest atheros drivers. I just let them at the ones that came in the CD I got to thank you man. I was stuck with old drivers for over 2 years.

spoke a bit too soon im still having the problem any more help would be appreciated thanks..

[n1ghtl1fe]

adamsyes wrote:
click on Start> Type Msconfig > open it and go to Boot tab. You should see Timeout set by default at 30 second. Turn that into a 3. once that is done go to advanced option enable the proccessor and set it to 8, and enable the ram (don't change it just check the box). restart and you should be OK.

It has nothing to do with the Hard drive. It's the ASUS motherboard & Windows 7 Operating system small issue

I have both those settings done, I even tried reversing all small optimizations lack that. Either way it gets me the same problem 😞

[Ruwin]

The dead screen at startup is a driver problem. Not more, not less. Only a video driver problem.

1. Uninstall any video driver you have.
2. Reboot. After you uninstall the video drivers and reboot, you will see that the dead screen is gone.
3. Install new driver from Nvidia web page (not Asus or anywhere else).
4. When installing, CHOOSE CUSTOM > CLEAN INSTALL. This will delete your former setup and preferences, as well as some keys from the registry.

REMEMBER: Always make a clean install of any software. Including Windows. Don't ever rely on software intelligence. The "Express install", "Normal install", "Quick install" and "Next .... Next ... Finish" type of installations are not for you, if you have bought a RoG laptop.

If this doesn't work, consider sending the laptop back for a serious hardware check.

[n1ghtl1fe]

after a couple clean installs of windows 7 and trying a lottt of different fixes from updating all my drivers to getting boot code errors/solutions. i also tried many of your suggestions but the one that worked finally was dstrakele's.

SOLVED: i completley uninstalled all nvidia drivers and booted in safe mode, then used Revo Uninstaller to completely remove all traces of nvidia from registry keys to left over files/folders. I then popped in my asus driver disc and installed the stock video drivers that came with my laptop. Problem solved, now she boots fast as hell.


Only one question now, am I stuck using these outdated drivers ? or could it possibly be the way the asus driver disc installed them that fixed the issue? The newest nvidia drivers benefit lots of newer games some that i am currently playing, it would suck not to be able to take advantage of these updates.

Any ideas? thanks again for all your help and input everyone