Black Screen After Recent Update

General Help
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1

Hello, all. Posting because I'm at a loss for how to go about fixing this.

I took in the most recent update yesterday, which seemed pretty chunky. I let it install, it asked to restart but I said no. I powered off my computer last night. This morning, I turned it on and it's just a black screen. I usually get a Zorin + Mobo logo during a 3s period to get into the BIOS, then it moves to GRUB, then eventually auto-proceeds to the login screen. As it stands, nothing is showing.

My hardware:
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 3700X
GPU: Sapphire 21323-01-20G Radeon RX 7900 XT 20 GB
RAM: 32GB

What I've tried/observed:

  1. I tried a different cord to the display. Same results. I verified with a separate device that both the cord and the display are working.
  2. My keyboard typically turns on during the period when I can get into the BIOS, then turns off during the move to GRUB, then turns back on. I notice my keyboard is still doing that.
  3. I've tried getting into BIOS. From point 2, I notice my keyboard doesn't turn off and back on, so I think I successfully get into the BIOS, but there's still no display.
  4. I've tried unplugging all peripherals/cords other than my mouse, keyboard, ethernet cable, and HDMI cable to the display.
  5. I've tried plugging in my Zorin boot stick to see if that would display to try to get at a repair utility, but I don't think it's using that boot device automatically and I can't see the BIOS to select it as the boot device.

Obviously, my best guess is something got borked with the graphics drivers, but even if that's the case I don't know what I'd do about that. I'm just using the AMD drivers that are part of the kernel.

Any thoughts on how to resolve this?

2

Not even BIOS? That's not good. Let's see if even TTY works.

At the would-be login screen, try:

If that doesn't work, maybe try a live USB to see if it can even show something (might need to push enter to select an option on boot—best case, when you tried it before, the boot option was defaulting to the USB, but you didn't push enter).

If either of those works, you will definitely have a path to recovery.

3

Can you connect another monitor?

4

Okay y'all, I'm baffled.

I went to try @chronosJ's suggestion and had the thought to completely unplug the turned-off machine for 10 seconds before trying to troubleshoot. The display is back now. I'm more confused than anything.

Anyone have any thoughts on why that fixed it? I powered the machine off/on probably ~10 times trying things before I posted here, so the only difference was that the machine had no power for a bit.

1 Like
5

Too many negative ions xD

No idea.

Glad it's working though!

6

I guess... I'll close this out. I guess next time I'll turn it off and back on harder.

Thanks for the quick replies and help, y'all.

1 Like
7

Maybe that exactly is the Difference.

Or it was simply the Ghost in the Machine.