Looks like everything loaded, but then I get a Black screen with a mouse pointer. Nothering else.

Submitted by mike8 on Fri, 05/18/2012 - 13:00

Had to shut down my server, and drop my Static IP's. I'm on a fixed income, and was not making anything off any of my sites (Bad SEO I guess), anyway I had to close it all down. Was going to try and move everything to another hosting company.

Before I shut down the server, I backed up everything, all the sites, and all the databases. Then just shut the server down. It stayed off for a couple weeks. Had moved 1 site up to GoDaddy, because the site qualified for FREE hosting, so I moved my wife's site up. It works just fine. I payed for a Deluxe Hosting account, and ftped one site up, then I tried to import my MySQL database, but had problems getting to to import.

Anyway I had not done anything to the server other than dropping the Internet connection. So I plugged in a internet connection from a dynamic IP address. Problem is now when I start the server, looks like everything is loading correctly, even if I watch everything thing load I get a "OK" on everything. It then goes to the Blue CentOS Screen, then goes Black with the mouse pointer. if I leave it the screen saver will kick in after a few minutes, and comes back to the mouse pointer, but still black screen when I move the mouse, or hit a key.

Is there some what to get the system to come up with out a internet connection?

Thanks Michael

Status: 
Closed (fixed)

Comments

Submitted by andreychek on Fri, 05/18/2012 - 13:10

Howdy -- you don't actually need an Internet connection for a machine to boot.

Some services may take longer to start (or timeout) without one, but that shouldn't prevent a machine from booting.

It sounds like you have console access to the machine there -- you may want to watch the system as it boots up, to see what messages are appearing on the console, as there may be messages, warnings, or errors that show what's going on.

Also, if you're booting up into the X Window System, it may just be a video problem -- you could always try hitting control-alt-f1 to jump to a terminal.

Submitted by mike8 on Fri, 05/18/2012 - 15:57

OK I have watched it as it boots up, and everything says "OK" no errors at all. I have the mouse pointer, but no curser. Just black screen. I let it set for a couple hours, still nothing. If I hit control-alt-f1 I louse the mouse pointer, but still black screen.

I don't under stand I haven't changes anything, didn't touch the system, just shut it down normally. Everything thing is exactly like it was before I shut it down. I have shut it down lots of time before, but never had this problem before.

Michael

Submitted by andreychek on Fri, 05/18/2012 - 18:50

That's difficult to say what's going on there -- normally, a server wouldn't be booting up into a graphical mode, and it sounds liike you're dealing with some sort of problem relating to the X Window System starting up (which would be the only reason you'd see a mouse pointer).

One thing you could try is to see if you can boot into single user mode, rather than the default mode it's booting into.

Details on how to do that are available here on the CentOS site:

http://www.centos.org/docs/5/html/5.2/Installation_Guide/s1-rescuemode-b...

Submitted by mike8 on Fri, 05/18/2012 - 23:35

OK I tried the Single User Mode, but I still ended up was a blank screen. Is there a way to repair the boot up. I really don't want to have to start all over again.

Michael

Submitted by andreychek on Sun, 05/20/2012 - 22:18

If you can't boot into single user mode, that typically suggests that you have a significant system problem.

Single user mode has very few dependencies, definitely does not rely on a network connection, and should typically always work.

When you system boots up, what is the last message you see before the screen goes blank?

Alternatively, you could always try booting your CentOS 5 CD as a rescue disk, if you just need to access your data. That may allow you to access your files, or otherwise troubleshoot the problem.

Submitted by mike8 on Mon, 05/21/2012 - 20:05

OK I found the problem. After thinking about it for a few days, it just hit me, I had unplugged the server for about 2 weeks. This allowed the caps on the Video Card to completely discharge, if there is a bad cap on the board, it may take a day or 2 before it gets charged up again.

Anyway I put another Video card in the server, and it fired right up. Problem solved.

Thanks for all the suggestions.

Michael