Windows 10: Black Screen of Death...

[Seattle]

I know this isn't a computer forum but there are a lot of members here and some are probably tech knowledgeable so here goes...

I have Windows 10 (desk top) and only within the last month have I had this problem. A couple of times a day for about 5 minutes, my computer screen goes black, the audio still works so if I'm watching a YouTube video and this happens I can still hear the audio.

When this happens I also notice the blue light from my disk drive blinking continuously meaning that it is doing something all this time. I run the virus/malware software and it finds nothing.

The problem corrects itself after about 5 minutes. I use Chrome but it's not a browser problem since it does the same thing if I open Explorer. It doesn't seem to be a video card problem (I don't really know what I'm talking about here) since I can still see a program I often have running in the background (has to do with tweaking my guitar amp).

I can still see the icons at the bottom of my windows screen.

I've done a Google search and there are many "black screen of death" scenarios which include resetting Chrome, resetting Windows, turning off all extensions (which I tried) but they never seem to work for the people posting and yet eventually they fall into something that does make it go away.

Some of the solutions are worse that the problem.

I'm just wondering if anyone here has ever had such a problem and if so, how you fixed it?

 

[DaveC426913]

So, it's not the screen gong black, only part of the screen going black - since you can still see your taskbar icons.

Does you mouse still work?

Are you in full-screen video when this happens? If you watch something when not in full-screen mode, does the whole screen still go black, or just the window?

 

[Seattle]

I can use the mouse, I can click an icon at the bottom and go to my desk top which looks fine. If I was in full screen mode when it happened I wouldn't be able to get out of it until those 5 minutes were up.

I think it must be something that runs sporadically that is not compatible with Windows 10. I went to Task Manager after it happened and when I could use the computer again to look at system history and the only thing that shows is something like "windowsapp" and I Googled that and it isn't able to tell you what app that is exactly. It just suggests that some app isn't compatible with some other app.

It may be some incompatibility between some driver and maybe the last Windows update. I have a feeling I'm going to just have to live with it since it works again after about 5 minutes. All of the possible "fixes" are potentially more severe than just living with it.

You can reboot and Windows will find most of the drivers needed automatically. In some cases it won't and then you are told to contact the various manufacturers and of course at that point you may be screwed or end up with a computer that doesn't work for days until you get it all figured out.

 

[C C]

It may be some incompatibility between some driver and maybe the last Windows update. I have a feeling I'm going to just have to live with it since it works again after about 5 minutes. All of the possible "fixes" are potentially more severe than just living with it.

An irregular update that Windows released circa the end of October caused a different problem on one of our desktop computers. The internet connection would be lost after circa 5 minutes, then occasionally (not always) return after awhile but then be lost again. We uninstalled that update in the applicable settings location. Then hid / blocked the offending update with this tool, so it couldn't get reinstalled.

Taking it for granted that you tried a system restore to an earlier state at the very beginning of the problem. If not, if it's been a month or more, then may be too late or any restore points you had prior to the difficulty have expired.

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