My laptop's screen won't turn on after restart but it will after shutdown

Question

I just installed Windows 8.1 x64 on my Laptop and I've encountered the following problem:

When I restart the laptop, the screen turns off after Windows logo shows up. Just before the "signing in..." page.

If I connect an external monitor everything works fine. I tried change back to original monitor but nothing happened. As if there is no original monitor.

The really strange thing is, that when I shut down my laptop, I turn it back on and everything works normally. The problem is only with restart.

Why is that happening and how can I solve it?

Note: My GPU is NVIDIA GEFORCE GT540M. If you need more hardware information please let me know.

Edit 1: Screen is not off. It is just black.

Edit 2: Now I have the same problem with shutdown too...

Edit 3: I installed windows 7........ I'm afraid I lost this battle....

Edit 4: I found a workaround but I cannot accept it as a solution but maybe it will help us. I noticed that when I restart my pc and get that black screen, if I put the pc on sleep and wake it up 5 seconds later, I get normal log in screen and everything works normal from that point.

Solution

After hours of searching, trial and error test and reading, I decided to man up and update BIOS. So I fixed a usb to boot windows 98 and got a flash utility thingy. After BIOS update everything seems to work fine.

If you have the same motherboard and you want to update bios translate this page and follow the instructions.

Comments

[astv25]

Did you update your GPU drivers recently?

[TheCrafter]

@astv25 Yes! I downloaded the latest GPU drivers from NVIDIA's site right after downloading Intel drivers from windows update.

[TheCrafter]

Screen is black not off. Thanks for pointing that out. And no I cannot pull up the task manager.

[Cosco Tech]

Black is way better than off, you'll want to start searching the web for black screen of death on startup (not as bad as it sounds). Are you able to boot into safe mode.

[Cosco Tech]

However you get into windows, you will want to do a disk check on the hard drive.windows.microsoft.com/en-ca/windows7/check-a-drive-for‌​-errors and also run sfc/scannow in an elevated cmd support.microsoft.com/kb/929833

[TheCrafter]

@Garret Cosco Thanks I will try this. I am formating again now and when I finish I will update the post if I have something.

[Cosco Tech]

What os did you have on the laptop prior?

[TheCrafter]

Windows 7 x64 and it worked fine.

[Cosco Tech]

OK, did you install windows 8 drivers from the manufacturers website after installing the OS.

[TheCrafter]

No I just run windows update, checked only driver updates (2 for intel and 2 for usb and bluetooth) and after the restart I downloaded nvidia drivers too. By the way the shutdown doesnt work either now...

[Cosco Tech]

Yah, you never want to trust windows to do your hardware updates, after you do the re-install, go to the laptop manufacturers website and download all the windows 8 drivers that pertain to that specific laptop model. Including the VGA.

[TheCrafter]

Well that may be a problem because my laptop's manufacturer is not a great company (HP, Sony, etc..). It's not even international. Bottomline: No drivers on their website. I'm on my own...

[Cosco Tech]

Any idea what the chipset is or motherboard? Whats the laptop model?

[TheCrafter]

System Model: A15 cpu: intel core i7-2670QM 2.20GHz

[Cosco Tech]

Is it a toshiba?

[Cosco Tech]

Unfortunately you will have to play around with it and hope for the best, try some of these driverscape.com/manufacturers/pegatron/laptops-desktops/a15/‌​…

[TheCrafter]

So you're saying to install drivers manually! Ok I will try this. Thanks a lot for your help

[TheCrafter]

Screen works sometimes. And works when I install windows 7. So its not that.

[TheCrafter]

Tried that too. Nothing happened, same problem!

[TheCrafter]

When I go to nvidia settings from external monitor I can only see the external monitor and not my laptop's so I cannot configure anything. win+p doesnt solve the problem either.

[mgutt]

And what do you see by right clicking the desktop and choosing "screen resolution". Only one screen, too?

[TheCrafter]

Yes. Only one. By the way check the post again I have one more status update to the problem.

[mgutt]

Ok, this is what I proposed you in 2.). But you missed to answer one important question: If the laptop screen is working, which GPU delivers the signal? I will attach a screenshot of the nvidia settings where you can see clearly which GPU is working.

[TheCrafter]

No laptop works through Intel HD graphics but I cannot turn it to NVIDIA. It won't let me...

[mgutt]

Thats a usual behaviour on many laptops. I updated my post again. Maybe you will find something useful. Finally I think the cable connection between screen and mainboard is not properly shielded or because of the folding mechanism damaged somehow.

[DarkEthics]

Have you tried using extended desktop and troubleshooting from that perspective once you're logged in? Also, could you post the make/model of your laptop? Your edit that after sleeping and resuming resolves the issue points even more to a display driver problem (Windows Sleep mode is supported/controlled by the display driver).