Black screen with spinning dots on start-up

[Anthony0520]

Hello!

I've been trying to resolve this issue for about two days now. HP Support Assistant on my notebook asked me to download some updates. Since it had faulted before, I only installed the two items with red exclamation marks next to them. One was a BIOS update (I think) and the other I can't remember. I let those install, restarted, and it went fine. 

So, I tried again with the other updates. I let that install in the background. After about 10 minutes, everything froze and went to a black screen. I hadn't a clue what had happened, I didn't know if the updates had finished installing, but it went black. At this time, there were no dots and I could still move my cursor around.

I waited for around an hour before I gave up and restarted the laptop (held down power button + turned it back on). I started as normal, with the HP logo and spinning dots at the bottom, resembling loading. Afterwards, the HP logo disappeared, it went darker and the spinning dots continued to spin. I could also move my cursor around. I had seen this before. That time, I reinstalled windows. I'm not fully recovered from that yet, and this happens. I don't want to do that again.

First thing I did was unplug my wireless mouse receiver. I let it sit for a bit more and restarted again. Afterwards, I tried a few things, many of them I found on this long forum thread. 

• Left ALT +Left SHIFT + PRINT SCREEN to toggle High Contrast on and off. (A loud beep and nothing else)
• Fn + F11 to trigger brightness sensor (nothing)
• Hard Reset (laptop off, battery out, power button down for 15 seconds to drain any residual electrical charge from the capacitors, battery back in, ac plug in, on - nothing)
• Blind typing PIN into computer (ctrl, PIN, win+p, enter - nothing)

At this point, I was completely frustrated. I went to Microsoft's support page and had a live chat with an employee, not getting anywhere. By this time it was 12 midnight and I was exhausted. I shut down the laptop and went to bed.

Today, I immediately went and turned it on. This time, instead of the HP Logo, it went to a black screen, no dots and a cursor. Then, I heard a windows noise (I think it's an error, the noise you hear when clicking off of a screen that tells you to do something). I tried the blind typing again to no avail. I restarted again and the dots reappeared. 

I'm so confused and frustrated. I went to HP's website to try and troubleshoot a little more.

• Hard Reset
• couldn't test the second monitor, don't have another
• Recovered the notebook's last good version of BIOS (it reinstalled it and restarted. came back to spinning dots

That's where I sit now. I have no clue of what to do. I really don't want to reinstall windows and lose all my data. I just want a fix. Thanks.

[Anthony0520]

It's been three days. I'd really like a fix for this soon, or a message that I absolutely have to reinstall windows. This is getting really frustrating. HP live chat is pretty useless too, they take about 5 minutes to respond to everything.

[The_Fossette · Accepted solution]

Hi @Anthony0520,

Welcome to the HP Forums!

Thank you for posting your query on this forum, it's a great place to find answers.

I reviewed your post and I understand that the computer is not booting to windows.

Don’t worry, I assure you I will try my best to get this sorted.

Awesome job on diagnosing the issue correctly and performing smart troubleshooting before posting your question on HP forums. Kudos to you on that score.

Follow the steps in the below article and check if it helps.

https://www.hp.com/my-en/shop/tech-takes/post/how-to-fix-computer-black-screen

Let me know how it goes and you have a great day!

To simply say thanks, please click the "Thumbs Up" button to give me a Kudos to appreciate my efforts to help. If this helps, please mark this as “Accepted Solution” as it will help several others with the same issue to get it resolved without hassles.

Take care.

Cheers!

[Anthony0520]

Thanks for the reply!

I tried that to no avail. I eventually gave up, now I'm now resetting to factory settings. Ah well, if this happens again, within a month, I still have a warranty. If it happens after, I'm getting a different laptop.

I don't know if this is relevant, but my battery is in the laptop is kinda wonky looking. When it's locked in, It's not completely in there, and I can still kinda wobble it. Yeh, I have no idea what I just said either :/.

Thanks anyways!

[The_Fossette]

Hi @Anthony0520,

I recommend you contact HP phone support and they will assist you in this regard.

Here is how you can get in touch with the phone support.

Open link: www.hp.com/contacthp/

Enter Product number or select to autodetects

Scroll down to "Still need help? Complete the form to select your contact options"

Scroll down and click on HP contact options - click on Get phone number.

Take care.

Cheers!

[CraigCarter]

I had this issue with four machines (Z4's).

Couldn't boot them up with the existing OS (Win 10).

Couldn't boot them to perform a Network boot either.
The Bios was on version 1.83.
I put the network cable in, went into the Bios (F12 from startup) and update the Bios,
Once I did this, I could then boot the machine without any further issues.

Hope this helps.

[praveen196]

@CraigCarter Welcome to HP Community!

Please provide the product number.

Note: Please ensure the complete product name/number for a quicker response from the community, as we need to know what we are dealing with to provide an accurate solution: 

Click here for steps on finding the information we need!

Remember: Do not share any of your personal information such as serial, phone number, email ID, etc.

https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/ish_2039298-1862169-16

Keep us posted,

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Give us a virtual high-five by clicking the 'Thumbs Up' icon below, followed by clicking on the "Accept as solution" on this post, 

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