Need help!!! ASAP

Ok here is the deal. My computer was running fine right before i left for work, I shut it down, go to work, get home, try to turn it on and boom explorer.exe doesn't load. The desktop background is there, i can move the mouse can adjust the resolution, but I cannot get into the video card settings. If it try control alt delete the screen goes black and I cannot do anything.

I went into the bios and reset to default settings because before this i was getting a screen telling me my overclocking failed, but it was running at these settings for almost two months, and setting the bois to default resulted in the same outcome. I then booted windows in safe mode and it loaded just fine, when i went to access the video card it told me the drivers for my video card had something wrong with them, idk if this is because of the safe mode or what. I tried a system restore to 4 days ago when the pc was running just fine and this also resulted in exactly what was described above. I am thinking this is a hardware issue? any thoughts, need help asap.

yes video card runs in VGA or some compatability mode when in "safe Mode"
yes you cannot usually fix drivers when in safe mode, safe mode does not load the drivers that might cause system failures, that is about what makes it safe

some situations with some video cards, the video card driver is attempted to run in safe mode (aka safe is not safe)
I have had video cards put in where i was actually unable to do safe mode AT ALL, because it was not safe, the problem was the way they put some driver thing in the safe mode running list. (does not sound like you have this problem)

I dont know exactally what to tell you to do. but there are possibilities
run 3dgurus driver cleaner, it would shred all the video drivers out, then booting it would force the Video to use compatability low res modes.
that puts you back to ZERO with the video drivers themselves.

yes it does sound like you had a hardware failure of some sort, but it certannly wouldnt have to be, could be some virus or a bad hunk of data on the disk , a piece of external hardware you have pluged in , or something.

when pushing an overclock to the edge that is for testing, be it extreeme voltages, high cpu setting, or a overclocked video card item.
because electronic gates can change some over time, and via high heats and hard work, it is good to step Back just a little bit on any overclocking after you tested out your maximums.
it is also good to not have Locked permenetally any extreeme setting, so you can step back to test.

system restore items provided by microsoft CAN BE (not always) pick and choose , it is completly possible to return a system restore and have the system be worse than it was before, because something had changed that was not there, or that is not chosen to be there. or that it did not return as it was expected.
Myself i concider system restore to be usefull only to return a single SIMPLE driver back, or a few registry entries, and therfore it is not at all a FULL BACKUP of the system.

Only a full clone image type of backup would completly secure your operating system in many emergency situations, i strongly suggest you figure out how to do one of these methods , instead of ever being forced to rely on the system restore.

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When you couldn't see your explorer.exe did you try and Ctrl+Alt+Del > File > Run explorer.exe? Or did you just restart and put it into safe mode.

JKessell said:

When you couldn't see your explorer.exe did you try and Ctrl+Alt+Del > File > Run explorer.exe? Or did you just restart and put it into safe mode.

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Check the post

As far as I know it's usually VGA mode in Safe Mode, but as for not being able to access the control center or anything graphic driver related, probably software corruption somehow. I'd probably re-seat the graphics card to make sure that was out of the question. At that point, if the issue isn't fixed, I'd driversweeper the graphics drivers and re-install, all which can be done in Safe Mode.

Run Memtest86+ to check your ram. Run at least 4 passes. It takes some time.