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Surface Book - Black Screen

Anonymous
2022-01-21T17:14:17+00:00

Morning

System: Windows 11 all updates applied

Frequently but randomly the screen my surface book will go "black". The laptop appears to have been powered off, but it has not been. I can depress the space bar, depress the mouse pad or depress power button (very infrequent). After the key depression, the black screen becomes a light gray in color. After a short interval, the system displays the screen that was displayed prior to the black screen.

Sometimes, the cycle repeats itself for several cycles and then is OK.

My wife has noted a similar problem has occurred on her Lenon laptop with a current version of Windows 10.

I should have added that the problem occurs if the Surface is on battery or is connected to an outlet.

Bob

Surface | Surface Book | Display and screen

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  1. Anonymous
    2022-01-28T21:27:20+00:00

    Afternoon John

    I have used the Surface for the last 31/2 day and a problem occurred once this morning (reasonably positive). I quickly recovered from the pattern as I did not have enough time to switch to my desktop.

    My Desktop is configured to share family photos from the hard drive (Drive D - hard drive 2). It is also configured for screen saver and power off time outs. I had wondered if that configuration may cause the problem but could never determine if the black screen occurred at the same time as the Desktop time outs occurred.

    I made a change in my desktop configuration.

    Reasons for change:

    1. Edge was slow to activate after I powered my system on in the morning.
    2. Outlook (Office) slower than Edge to connect (trying to connect message) than Edge was.
    3. Sometimes, I would activate Edge, click on Outlook (Edge) and Outlook (Office would display within 2-3 seconds.
    4. Windows Hello would consistently fail to log on after the initial power on in the morning. Surface would log via Hello with no issues.

    Change

    1. Desktop used an Ethernet cable to connect to my modem (Netgear modem - about 2 years old).
    2. Surface uses Wi-fi to connect to the network.
    3. I disconnected the Ethernet cable from the modem and activated Wifi on the 5Mhz band (2.4Mh is also configured).

    I very quickly noticed the omission of the black screen problem.

    I will continue to monitor.

    I did the Reliability search and this message displayed:

    Critical Events:

    Photo Screen Saver Stopped Responding and was closed 1/28/2022 10:45 am

    Same message repeated on other days plus multiple times on some days. Other messages were contained in the history file.

    Bob

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  2. Anonymous
    2022-01-31T17:19:06+00:00

    I appreciate the details provided. In this case, please perform the USB recovery process. This process will wipe everything out on your device and install a fresh operating system. Please make sure that you have back up your files and data either in an External Hard drive or use your OneDrive app. You’ll need a USB (USB stick) with at least 16GB/32 GB and format it clean (make sure that you have chosen FAT32 as the file system while formatting the USB). You'll need a PC running Windows 10 or Surface Device to download the system files/recovery image on the Microsoft Website.    Note: USB/Flash drives are the only required device for you to perform the follow steps below successfully.After formatting the USB to FAT32 USB, convert the FAT32 USB stick as a bootable device. Go to search > search for create a recovery drive > then follow the on-screen instructions. Please proceed to the steps below after converting your USB to a bootable USB stick:• Download the System Files or Recovery Image:1. Go to the Download a recovery image for your Surface.2. If you’re signed in with your Microsoft account, you will be prompt to choose the device from the list of devices on your Microsoft Account. If you’re not signed in, choose a product on the drop-down menu and provide the Serial Number of the device.3. Once the download is finished, go to the file, right-click and choose Extract all then choose the USB/Flash drive.

    • Perform the USB recovery:

    1. Shutdown the device by pressing/holding the power button for 10 seconds until it’s off. 
    2. Insert the USB recovery drive into the USB port. 
    3. Press and hold the volume-down (-) rocker. 
    4. Press and release the power button. 
    5. When the Surface logo appears, release the volume-down (-) rocker. 
    6. Choose your language options and keyboard layout. 
    7. Select Troubleshoot. 
    8. Select Recover from a Drive. Choose Remove Everything and Fully Clean the Drive. Recovering this PC. If prompted for BitLocker Key, tap Skip this Drive. 
    9. Select “Recovery”.

    Let me know how this goes.

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  3. Anonymous
    2022-01-31T18:12:59+00:00

    Jon

    Thanks for the direction. Since the problem has basically disappeared, I will avoid doing what you suggest. I will keep a copy of information just in case the problem reoccurs in a more consistent pattern.

    Other than the one possible occurrence, the scenario has not been repeated.

    I have noticed that when the screen saver is activated on the Surface, a black screen appears for 1-2 seconds (i.e. noticeably short interval) and then the screen saver begins to display the pictures from the desktop drive.

    Thank you. Your responses are greatly appreciated.

    Bob

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  4. Anonymous
    2022-02-01T22:12:53+00:00

    I'm glad that the issue is resolved.

    In case you have questions in the future, please feel free to create a new post and we'll be glad to assist.

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