Many people have this issue (I've got it and I can't even update from 8 to 8.1). Apparently it has something to do with the magnetic sensor or something of the likes. 

To update my troubleshooting attempts, 

Its the same case i found. i had g55vw and upgraded to 8.1  . the black screen startup happen everytime and i have to hit the power button to sleep my device for it will be normal after wake up

is there still no fix to this thing? we all have the same issues its not the graphics card or something is being faulty.. its the drivers .. i have this thing too.. but when i use the older version of nvidia VGA i dont have black screen it works well everytime

It looks like more than one person is having this problem. So who is at fault here graphics driver (I've got an nvidia gtx660m), Microsoft or something that's ASUS has installed?

And how do we get someone to fix it?

Once again, another G55VW with a black screen boot. I also started noticing it after the 8.1 update, but up until recently found that it would at least boot, and only go black just before the sign in screen; putting it to sleep and then waking up got past that. Now however, it is just black from the off. Its a futile attempt, but I would love any suggestions.

Nice to see I'm not alone with this issue, I've still come across nothing that fixes the issue.  It may have something to do with the uefi settings.  If I turn on CSM support in the bios it fixes the issue but then you deal with windows being unhappy that you've done that.

same here. searching for solution but no luck. normaly people who face this problem have also intel graphic card. after disabling this its working for them. but this asus model has no built in gr. card. more above they have latest graphic card driver on official asus tech support and whilst i wanted to instal this driver i got pop up window that component is missing and i can not instal it. so it seems that its asus **** **** us off. but when i contacted asus tech support, they gave me some stupid ridiculous advices like for unexperienced user. really annoying because this old graphic card causes skype video calls crashes and freezing. really asus...stop to sell this ****.

So my problem has been solved. - NOPE worked once, then same old blank screen FFS

IGNORE BELOW IT WAS A WASTE OF TIME

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Cause was windows 8 automatically installing an old driver for the nvidia graphics card which caused a problem every start-up.

Solution:

PART A (prevent windows from doing it again):

1.  Right click my computer 

2. click properties

3. Click advanced system settings

4. click hardware tab

5. click driver installation settings

6. select "No, let me choose what to do"

7. select "Never install driver software from windows update"

8. click save changes

PART B (download Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU)):

1. Go to http://www.wagnardmobile.com/DDU/downloads.html

2. download the latest version (DDU v13.4.2.2 at time of writing)

3. run the self extracting setup DDU v13.4.2.2.exe

PART C (reboot safe mode and clean out dirvers);

1. in the start menu type "msconfig"

2. run msconfig

3. click the boot tab

4. tick the "safe boot" option

5. I selected the Network option (just in case I needed something else or needed to check a tutorial).

6. click ok

7. click restart.

8. wait for restart and then login. you'll be presented with windows safe boot.

9. run the "display driver uninstaller" downloaded in PART B

10. click the "Clean and restart" button

11. After restart into normal windows boot, the device manager should show you have the basic display device (instead of the nvidia card) - this is normal.

12. download the latest nvidia display driver 

13. install it and hopefully no more blank screens.