Laptop Issue ...

[joko]

my laptop - a compaq presario f500
goes dark after booting up

i switch on, and it goes through the start up screens, but when it gets to the windows symbol it appears to be starting up then, instead of going to the log-on screen, it just goes dark and won't do anything.
its is not dark like black with light behind it, but proper dark.
it is still whirring away, with all lights on, so its not power issue.

it opens up in safe mode ok, so its not a broken screen.

i have run chkdsk and it has not changed anything.
i have tried pressing various buttons etc, but nothing changes

i have not been able to do a system restore because for some reason there is no restore points saved (not sure why, i may have turned it off for some reason - its not my primary laptop so cant recall)

any ideas?

thanks

[rojash]

If it works in safe mode, but not in normal mode, that would tend to point to a driver issue - and as it's the screen that doesn't work, logically, the first place to look is the video drivers.
Start it in safe mode, and then uninstall the video drivers.
Restart, and if you're luck it will redetect the video adaptor - if not, you can download the latest drivers from HP.