8 posts shown.
So, here’s the deal: my graphics card was working perfectly fine just a few days ago. I actually updated the drivers recently and everything was smooth sailing. But today, I decided to wipe macOS and start fresh. As soon as the installation process tries to kick in the graphics driver, the screen just goes black and stays frozen. This is on my laptop—the Intel integrated graphics install without a hitch and work totally fine, but the second I try to get the NVIDIA GeForce GTX series running, everything blacks out. I’ve tried installing directly through the Device Manager, but—black screen. I tried downloading the driver straight from the manufacturer's site, and—black screen again. Even after a full reboot, the exact same thing happens during the driver install. To make matters more confusing, I did swap out the thermal paste on both the CPU and the GPU just about a week ago.
Any ideas on what I should do?
So, here’s the deal: my laptop was working totally fine, but then I started getting this weird error message during startup. It basically said it couldn't boot because it couldn't delete some "restoration file." I’d just hit delete, it would restart, and everything would load up normally. But now? Every single morning when I turn it on, it hits the macOS logo and just dies. It doesn't even get to the loading screen—those little spinning dots never even show up. The weird part is, if I physically pull the Microsoft drive out and plug it back in, it works perfectly fine. So yeah, it happens every morning. Anyone know what's going on?
I should probably mention that I already tried a system recovery to reset everything to factory settings. I didn't actually wipe the drive or format the C partition; I just did a standard reset, but no luck there. Also, I don't have a battery in the laptop right now since mine died, and I'm still waiting on a replacement to arrive.
I really need a fix. I'm super hesitant to just format the C partition because I seriously do not want to spend an entire day reinstalling all my programs... but if that's the only way, I guess I'm stuck.
steelgull47 said:Hit the Start menu, type in msconfig, then head over to the Boot tab and check out Advanced Options. Make sure "Maximum memory" isn't checked—if it even shows a checkmark at all.
Update your BIOS to the latest version, too. It might just be outdated.
If that doesn't do the trick, try burning a Hiren bootable drive to run some hardware diagnostics. It might not actually be a Microsoft issue; something else could be acting up.
http://www.hirensbootcd.org/
https://rufus.akeo.ie/
Just download the Hiren ISO to your computer, then use Rufus to flash it onto a USB drive in a bootable format. Give your PC a restart and tell it to boot from that USB stick first.
Here are some instructions
I actually tried that first thing, but no luck there.
I'm going to give the second suggestion a shot sometime this week. Thanks!
Man, I’m starting to think it’s definitely not a BIOS issue. My Kingmax RAM sticks are behaving perfectly fine—one 2GB stick shows up as the full 2GB without any drama. But these Kingston sticks? Total headache. I’ve got two 2GB modules, and they both show up as half capacity. Even when I try running just one Kingston stick by itself, the system only sees 1GB instead of the full 2GB. The weirdest part is that when I test these exact same sticks in a different PC, they work perfectly fine. So, something is definitely up here.
Here’s a shot of my BIOS settings:
View on imgurView on imgurView on imgurView on imgurView on imgurhttp://i.imgur.com/n3xovqQ.jpg
steelgull47 said:First thing you should do is check the maximum amount of Intel memory that motherboard can actually handle. I have a buddy whose rig caps out at just 2 GB, for example. Just Google the motherboard model and look up its limits. It could also be a Windows issue, though. Try creating a new partition and installing a different version of Windows on it to see if that changes anything.
The board is a Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L. It’s definitely not a Windows problem—I've seen this exact same thing happen on Windows 7, Windows 10, and Windows 8. Plus, I have another PC running the exact same version of Windows that shows the full capacity of the Intel memory without any issues.
Roger Gray8 said:Since when? If the BIOS shows it as HW reserved, that's pretty much it. It’s likely just the integrated graphics taking up space. What's the exact motherboard model you're working with?
Honestly, I think it's always been like that. It isn't actually my rig.
The board is a Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L
It's got an AMD Radeon HD 6570 installed, the drivers are all set, and the system picks it up fine in the driver manager.
wearymason4 said:What kind of graphics card is in that PC... maybe integrated?
And how much RAM can the motherboard handle?
AMD Radeon HD 6570
I'm not entirely sure, but I honestly doubt that's the issue here. Even when I pop in those 2GB Kingston sticks, the system only shows me 1GB total.
Hey there,
I’m hitting a massive wall with my RAM, and honestly, it’s driving me a little crazy. Here’s the deal: I have two sticks of Kingston RAM 800 MHz PC2-6400 (2GB each). When I pop them into my PC, the system detects 4GB total, but it says only 2GB is actually usable. If I pull one stick out, it shows 2GB total, but again, only 1GB is usable. My motherboard has four slots—two yellow ones and two red ones. I’ve tried swapping every single stick into every single slot, but the result is always the same. It’s like no matter where I plug them in, they just get cut in half. Now, here is where it gets weird. I have another computer running a single 2GB Kingmax stick with the exact same specs. When I use just that one, it correctly shows 2GB usable. But if I throw all three sticks in there (the Kingmax plus those two Kingston ones), it shows 4GB usable out of 6GB total. So, it recognizes the full 2GB from the Kingmax, plus half of each of the two Kingston sticks. However, when I take those problematic Kingston sticks over to this second machine, they work perfectly—it shows the full 4GB out of 4GB. I am completely stumped. Both machines are running identical 64-bit Windows.
The funny thing is, the CPU-Z program actually sees the full amount of RAM in both slots; it’s just Windows that insists on showing me only half.
On my first motherboard, it lists DDRII 800/1066/FSB1333
while the second one says DDR2 1066
Any help at all would be amazing. Thanks a million, everyone!