Black screen of death on new laptop

[basicchannel]

Getting an annoying Windows 7 Black SOD when trying to log in under a particular profile. Usual story: log in, screen fades to black and only mouse cursor remains. I've run a system restore, run a Chkdsk and repair on the drive, run extensive tests on memory (memtest) and uninstalled any potential problem software, all with no positive outcome. Event logs seem pretty uneventful, and this only happens with one login. Oh yes, I've also run a full scan with MBAM with no malware found.

 

Other things I've noticed:

Every time anyone logs in you get a notification about needing to set a page file size, and it shows you the current setup is 0MB. This happens even if you subsequently set a page file size and then log in again. Any thoughts?

 

Also, we noticed the local admin account was disabled (this was after it was returned to us with an unrelated problem) and a new local admin account had been set up in the name of the laptop owner. She has very limited technical knowledge so can't see how she would do this, and no one apart from us knows admin level login details anyway.

 

Any thoughts would be very helpful.

[Pete10141748]

Strangely I had almost the same issue today, only that I couldn't log in as it would happen straight after the Windows logo fades from the boot screen.

 

Re-installed the OS and it all seems fine now, couldn't do anything to find out what the issue was as trying to run the recovery console that same thing would happen!

[basicchannel]

Strangely I had almost the same issue today, only that I couldn't log in as it would happen straight after the Windows logo fades from the boot screen.

 

Re-installed the OS and it all seems fine now, couldn't do anything to find out what the issue was as trying to run the recovery console that same thing would happen!

 

Cheers, I was hoping it wouldn't come to that but it may be the only way. I also tried a recovery using a disc and it would just error with some complaint about making sure you've unplugged any USB devices and try again.

Edited May 28, 2012 by basicchannel
obvs. unable to spell

[Pete10141748]

The only diagnosis I had to go on was that the teacher put in her usb stick and then the laptop crashed. Strange!

[basicchannel]

Yup, I think it probably is malware somewhere along the line.

[MrEprise]

I've had a similar issue in W7 where it would take anywhere around 5 to 60 mins to get from the fading windows logo to actually logging in. Found out in the end this was being caused by the following windows update: KB971033 - Update for Windows Activation Technologies.

 

Whatever it was doing was delaying the time windows took to login. Of course YMMV but i've encountered a few PCs where this was the underlying cause.

[Michael]

This does sound like a hardware issue or potentially malware, I agree.

[Pete10141748]

Well after re-installing the OS and doing around 2 hours of testing yesterday the teacher is using it this morning with no problems, so I don't think it's hardware related as I didn't change anything! Malware or dodgy update, I'd guess.