Microsoft automatically update your Windows installation through system updates, these are downloaded and installed automatically, often without too much warning.

Unfortunately a recent driver update for the nVidia graphics cards is causing a problem for computers which have multiple graphics cards running more than one monitor.

Essentially, if you get this problem, you will be faced with completely black screens, they will be powered on, and you will see a mouse cursor / pointer (white arrow) which you will be able to move around the screens, but you will not be able to do anything else.

Rebooting the PC will showing the spinning ‘loading’ dots but eventually these will freeze in place and you will still be unable to use your computer.

The driver which Microsoft have forced down to your machine is faulty and is the cause of this issue. It is an old driver so we are unsure why Microsoft are sending it out to computers and whilst we have told them about this, at this time we are still seeing it being forced down to some computers with little way to stop it.

The Fix

After a serious amount of testing we have found the way to resolve the issue, please follow these steps:

1. Disconnect all but one of your monitors from the back of your PC. i.e. pull out the monitor cables until only one screen remains connected, it does not matter which one.

2. Reboot the PC (switch it off and on again) and see if you get back to a normal Windows desktop, i.e. if you can see your desktop icons.

If you still do not get a Windows desktop, disconnect the monitor that is connected to the back of the PC and the re-connect one of the other monitors into a different graphics port then restart the PC.

Keep going with this until you manage to get it to boot up into Windows properly.

It will eventually load Windows however you may have to cycle through all the graphics ports on the back of the PC one after another.

Remember, this will only work if you have just one monitor connected to the PC, you need to physically pull the monitor cables from the PC, simply switching off the power to the screens will not be enough.

3. Once you are at your Windows desktop please open up an Internet browser and go to: http://www.nvidia.co.uk/download/driverResults.aspx/126969/en-uk, this is a new graphics card driver.

Click Download and then double click on the downloaded file to run it. To install the driver simply accept all the defaults. Once this has completed you can shut down you PC.

4. Re-connect all the monitor cables back up to the PC and power it back on, you should then be back up and running again.

You may have to re-order the screens again in the Display Properties, if you have not plugged them back into the same graphics ports as they came out of, to see how to do this please follow this guide:

Setting up Multiple Monitors in Windows Display Settings

Written by Darren @ Multiple Monitors

Last Updated: November, 2017