Minecraft Launcher Causing Black Screen and Laggy Cursor

Question

When I try to launch Minecraft, I get an extremely laggy cursor, and a black window where the log in window should be. It's not the "black screen" issue that people talk about, as this is happening before I even log in. I've tried completely removing my .minecraft folder and redownloading the minecraft.exe, but neither of these worked. It's been laggy starting up the launcher on this computer for ages, but it used to work up until recently.

EDIT: My computer is more than adaquate for the game:

Intel Core i5 CPU (second gen I thinK) ATI Mobility Radeon 5650 GPU 6GB dual-channel DDR3 RAM

Only thing that's a bit slow is the HDD, at 5400 RPM.

Answer 1

The user njallam has provided a good answer to this problem in another question:

Launching Minecraft lags computer

That solved my problem at least, hope it also solves yours.

Answer 2

There really are a lot of variables to consider. For a start, ensure that your computer is actually up to playing Minecraft. If you are unsure about this, have a look at the Hardware Performance Guide on the Minecraft wiki. I've found that the more content that is added to the game, the higher the specifications you require for your computer to run the game. Compare the first Minecraft release with the latest, see how much more resources are used with 1.2.5? In this case I think it would be most likely that your computer is running out of RAM on startup. Clear out your computer and close down all other applications, then try run Minecraft. If that still doesn't work, I'd give a different launcher a go such as Magic Launcher. Good luck.