Windows no display on boot

[testcy]

Occasionally Windows shows no display on boot. This started happening recently and powering off and on usually solves the problem. Windows version is 10.0.26100.6584 with latest updates. AMD display adapter driver is 31.0.21923.11000. I found a lot of similar problems by searching, but nothing that really helped. Any ideas?

[Tetras]

Is it specifically only Windows, so the BIOS works fine?

[testcy]

21 minutes ago, Tetras said:

Is it specifically only Windows, so the BIOS works fine?

I don't enter BIOS on every boot, but I think it works fine. There is a lot of drive activity, so I suspect it is Windows related.

[Tetras]

7 minutes ago, testcy said:

I don't enter BIOS on every boot, but I think it works fine. There is a lot of drive activity, so I suspect it is Windows related.

What I'm trying to ask is, do you have a black screen from boot to (and including) Windows, or do you only have a black screen when reaching Windows?

[testcy]

3 hours ago, Tetras said:

What I'm trying to ask is, do you have a black screen from boot to (and including) Windows, or do you only have a black screen when reaching Windows?

Only have a black screen when reaching Windows, even though I sometimes briefly see the Windows boot logo and hear the Windows startup sound.

[TudorFinalBosz]

Try boot from a USB installer and repair the BCD.

If not, try safe mode and see if the issue persists.

Or do a drive scan to fix file errors.

[testcy]

3 hours ago, TudorFinalBosz said:

Try boot from a USB installer and repair the BCD.

If not, try safe mode and see if the issue persists.

Or do a drive scan to fix file errors.

Safe mode seems to work and a drive scan finds no errors. Can I use the USB installer used to install Windows to repair the BCD?

[TudorFinalBosz]

12 minutes ago, testcy said:

Safe mode seems to work and a drive scan finds no errors. Can I use the USB installer used to install Windows to repair the BCD?

Yes. There are plenty of tutorials on how to do this. Just be careful with what you type. It's a headache to fix the BCD manually if you make a mistake.

[testcy]

16 hours ago, TudorFinalBosz said:

Yes. There are plenty of tutorials on how to do this. Just be careful with what you type. It's a headache to fix the BCD manually if you make a mistake.

I read that I might need to manually rebuild the BCD if access denied error occurs, and if problems persist, to use third-party tools. As this is the system I am using now, I think I risk having to reinstall Windows.

[TudorFinalBosz]

45 minutes ago, testcy said:

I read that I might need to manually rebuild the BCD if access denied error occurs, and if problems persist, to use third-party tools. As this is the system I am using now, I think I risk having to reinstall Windows.

If you can boot from safe mode, then the problem might not be corrupted BCD, but some driver or some startup program issue.

Might be worth going into Task Manager and disabling anything that runs at startup. Then testing again. If it still has issues starting up, then it might be some driver. So then removing drivers and reinstalling them one by one might solve the issue.

 

[testcy]

On 10/13/2025 at 9:45 AM, TudorFinalBosz said:

If you can boot from safe mode, then the problem might not be corrupted BCD, but some driver or some startup program issue.

Might be worth going into Task Manager and disabling anything that runs at startup. Then testing again. If it still has issues starting up, then it might be some driver. So then removing drivers and reinstalling them one by one might solve the issue.

 

As no new programs run at startup, I will try to uninstall the display adapter driver from AMD and install the driver from Windows Update.

[testcy]

It seems that the problem is more complicated than I though. Even when Windows does show display on boot, occasionally AMD High Definition Audio Device is not detected and there is no sound (over DisplayPort connection). Powering off and on temporarily solves the problem.