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Power surge, now my screen won't work

First of all, my computer was off and connected to a surge protector. We had a power surge/interruption, the power was off for about 2 hours. When it came back on, I can boot the computer and it sounds fine, I can see the bios booting up on the screen, but once Wnidows XP starts, the screen is black.

I know the screen is working because I can see all the BIOS numbers scrolling by.

This has happened before with a power surge, screen won't work, but always before I have just unplugged everything completely front the power and then it worked when I plugged things back in.. this time, I can't get it to work.

Do I need to reinstall Windows? I went into safe mode, or tried to via F8, I select safe mode and then it won't do anything, won't actually go into it.

seems to be some kind of problem with Windows or else the screen software, it is an LCD Samsung with Pivot software installed for it.

I am at a loss and all my business is via this PC, help!!!!!!!

Answered! View the answer I have this problem too

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Thank you both for your answers, I will try repairing the current XP installation first -- hopefully that will be all I need! before I have to start examining hardware....

I have another question though: why did this happen when I had a good surge protector on? does this mean my surge protector is toast as well? My computer wasn't even turn on when this happened. I'd say we get such events here about 4 times a year, so I am worried about other computers in the house as well. They are iMacs and seem to have escaped damage this time.

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I think that surge protectors are only as good as the money they cost, There are some good ones and a few that are a waste :-) I have had more trouble with corrupted files on hard drives than with fried components or PSU's. Probably because the data on a hard drive is far more sensitive.....Good Luck and thank you for accepting my answer.

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Jil, you have a couple of options here before replacing any hardware. It seems to me, like it is a corrupt Windows Registry file that is giving you a hard time. You can try and repair the current installation. Check on here to see how to repair without formatting your HDD. The other thing you can do, is to download a live version of Linux (I prefer Puppy Linux) and see if your hardware checks out. I am not yet convinced that this is a hardware issue. Hope this helps, good luck.

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Power surges are hit or miss

first, check for any visible damage on the motherboard, memory, harddrive and replace the optical drives ONLY if you need

replace the power supply with a cheap one and you can try from there, but ther is no gurantee it will fix it

you are in for a motherboard most likely if a power supply does not fix it, from there, time for a new computer more often then not

sorry dude, it could be toast, and easier to assess if i seen it in person if i could

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yeah, it often fries the majority of the computer

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