I have a Pavilion G7 Laptop - Model 1318dx.
I recently had the computer crash on me and when I tried to restart it would go no farther than a black screen with a white mouse pointer. When it tries to restart, it shows the inital Windows start up graphic (swirling colored dots that converge on the Windows logo) but then goes no farther.
I tried the following with no success:
- Restart in Safe Mode - resulted in the same black screen, but with a larger mouse pointer
- Removed the battery and pressed the power button for 30 seconds then restart - same black screen
I took the computer to work and our internal support person (who supports about 250 people who use HP laptops) said he had never seen anything like it. His best guess was that the hard drive had failed.
I took it back home and tried the following:
- Ran the HP Diagnostics below:
- Ran Start Up Test diagnostic - Failed because of the "Memory Module"
- Ran Run In diagnostic - Failed because of the "Memory Module"
- Ran Memory Test diagnostic - Failed
- Ran Hard Drive Test diagnostic - passed
- Removed the single memory module and placed it in the other slot - nothing at restart
- Re-ran the Memory Test diagnostic - Failed
Is a failed memory module commonly the cause of a black screen with only the mouse pointer showing?
If so, can someone explain what is happening with the memory module that would cause this? Does it just not have enough memory to do the next start-up task, or is it doing something else to the software?
Is the solution here to simply replace the memory module?
Thanks for any help.