Question Grey/ black screen of death

[SaltyPretzel]

I have an issue that occurs very sporadically on my self-built Windows 11 computer.

I can hear the windows "ping", and OS seems to be loading like normal but there is no image on the monitor - only a neutral grey.
Ctrl+Alt+Del gives me a black screen, but nothing more. If I press escape I'm back to the grey screen. Sometimes the grey color is more of a windows-blue.
The only thing I can do is hold the power-button down to force the computer to shut down. When I reboot I'm unable to get into the bios, the post-screen is not showing, and the windows loading-circle is not displaying. Then it is back to the grey/black screen.

Win+Ctrl+Shift+B gives me a "ping" and the screen flashing grey and black, but no more.
My solution is to force the computer off several times until the windows repair-tool starts, and then it can finally boot into windows again.

The computer is very stable otherwise, both during normal office use, gaming and other tasks.

Event Viewer and Reliability Monitor shows the same critical event every time, and I have no other critical events in the logs.
It reads "Windows was not properly shut down", with the following details: Kernel-Power, Event ID 41.

My setup:

• Windows 11 IoT LTSC
• ASUS ProArt X870e Creators WiFi
• Seasonic 860W Platinum
• AMD Ryzen 7 98000x3D
• Asus GeForce GTX 4070 Super OC 12GB
• Corsair Vengeance DDR5 6000Mhz 64GB
• Samsung 990 Pro M.2 2TB SSD

I would really appreciate any help on solving this frustrating issue.

 

[USAFRet]

"Event ID 41" is simply the OS saying: "I shut down, and I do not know why. Human...please fix me."
You'd see exactly the same after a random neighborhood power outage.

It is not a 'fault' of its own.


I'd be tempted to trying a standard Win 11 (Home or Pro), vs the IoT LTSC.
Obtain a different drive and install on that.

 

[Lutfij]

Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

Disable iGPU in BIOS and see if that helps. Speaking of BIOS, what BIOS version are you on for your motherboard? As for your the black screen part, what driver version are you working with for your RTX 4070 Super? How old is the PSU in your build?

 

[SaltyPretzel]

Thanks for the input both of you!

USAFRet: I ran standard Win 11 pro when I first set the system up, and got a few of these errors before attempting a full format and reinstall of windows. I decided to go for a version with less bloat, but still got the issue. I actually also changed the system drive at the same time, as the previous one was bit small.

Lutfij: I'm on the latest BIOS for my motherboard (1401), but the issue also occured on previous versions.
My drivers for the GPU is the latest NVIDIA Studio Drivers V576.02.

The PSU is by far the oldest component in the system, and has been with me for 12 years(!). You think it might be the culprit?

I will disable iGPU and see if that helps

 

[USAFRet]

The PSU is by far the oldest component in the system, and has been with me for 12 years(!). You think it might be the culprit?

A 12 yo PSU?
Yes, maybe.

 

[ubuysa]

... I decided to go for a version with less bloat, but still got the issue...

Is "less bloat" what you mean by running an LTSC edition? These are designed for enterprises, not home users. In addition you require a Microsoft volume license to run it after the 90-day evaluation period. I don't think this is the answer to whatever issue you may have been having.

 

[johnbl]

I have an issue that occurs very sporadically on my self-built Windows 11 computer.

I can hear the windows "ping", and OS seems to be loading like normal but there is no image on the monitor - only a neutral grey.
Ctrl+Alt+Del gives me a black screen, but nothing more. If I press escape I'm back to the grey screen. Sometimes the grey color is more of a windows-blue.
The only thing I can do is hold the power-button down to force the computer to shut down. When I reboot I'm unable to get into the bios, the post-screen is not showing, and the windows loading-circle is not displaying. Then it is back to the grey/black screen.

Win+Ctrl+Shift+B gives me a "ping" and the screen flashing grey and black, but no more.
My solution is to force the computer off several times until the windows repair-tool starts, and then it can finally boot into windows again.

The computer is very stable otherwise, both during normal office use, gaming and other tasks.

Event Viewer and Reliability Monitor shows the same critical event every time, and I have no other critical events in the logs.
It reads "Windows was not properly shut down", with the following details: Kernel-Power, Event ID 41.

My setup:

• Windows 11 IoT LTSC
• ASUS ProArt X870e Creators WiFi
• Seasonic 860W Platinum
• AMD Ryzen 7 98000x3D
• Asus GeForce GTX 4070 Super OC 12GB
• Corsair Vengeance DDR5 6000Mhz 64GB
• Samsung 990 Pro M.2 2TB SSD

I would really appreciate any help on solving this frustrating issue.

sounds like the motherboard protection circuits are resetting the cpu.
I would:
- verify the power supply voltage values.
- confirm that the gpu is not overheating
- remove any overclock drivers, check for 2 overclock drivers installed.
- blow dust out of cpu, gpu, and psu fans.

having reboot problems might indicate a heat build up issue.
ie if it boot after it cools down.

as a test you might underclock the gpu to reduce power use.
pretty common to have two overclock drivers installed due to the vendor moving the install location over the years and not checking to see if the driver is already installed.

you can use microsoft autoruns64.exe to look for the overclock drivers. Or if you have a memory dump they can be listed. (lmiftsm debugger command)

 

[DudeWithGTX2025]

I had the same issue on my server which shows gray screen when booted into windows (even when doing some tasks and appeared), and realized it was too hot in my room until I turned on my fan towards the motherboard.

 

[SaltyPretzel]

Is "less bloat" what you mean by running an LTSC edition? These are designed for enterprises, not home users. In addition you require a Microsoft volume license to run it after the 90-day evaluation period. I don't think this is the answer to whatever issue you may have been having.

Yes, less bloat is the reason why I went for LTSC edition, but I do not expect it to have any impact on the grey screen-issue - as it also occured on the Pro-version.
I chose the LTSC because it has drastically fewer processes/ background services running, and does not preinstall bloat like Xbox, Game Bar, Cortana, One Drive, Weather, News, MSN feed, mail, calendar, 3D viewer, Paint 3D, Solitaire, Microsoft Store (and the list goes on and on and on). Also I appreciate the reduced telemetry.
The license I already have, so that will not be an issue.

sounds like the motherboard protection circuits are resetting the cpu.
I would:
- verify the power supply voltage values.
- confirm that the gpu is not overheating
- remove any overclock drivers, check for 2 overclock drivers installed.
- blow dust out of cpu, gpu, and psu fans.

Great suggestions, but just to clarify: I've never had a crash or a spontanous reboot on this system. The issue only occurs when starting up from "cold", after what appears to be a normal shut-down the day before (or earlier the same day).
I have deliberately avoided all overclock drivers, and I'm not overclocking through the bios. My office rarely rises above 68F, and the computer is well ventilated so all my temperatures are within limits.
I will definitely verify the voltages on the PSU. Is software reliable enough, or should I dig out my multimeter?

 

[johnbl]

Yes, less bloat is the reason why I went for LTSC edition, but I do not expect it to have any impact on the grey screen-issue - as it also occured on the Pro-version.
I chose the LTSC because it has drastically fewer processes/ background services running, and does not preinstall bloat like Xbox, Game Bar, Cortana, One Drive, Weather, News, MSN feed, mail, calendar, 3D viewer, Paint 3D, Solitaire, Microsoft Store (and the list goes on and on and on). Also I appreciate the reduced telemetry.
The license I already have, so that will not be an issue.

Great suggestions, but just to clarify: I've never had a crash or a spontanous reboot on this system. The issue only occurs when starting up from "cold", after what appears to be a normal shut-down the day before (or earlier the same day).
I have deliberately avoided all overclock drivers, and I'm not overclocking through the bios. My office rarely rises above 68F, and the computer is well ventilated so all my temperatures are within limits.
I will definitely verify the voltages on the PSU. Is software reliable enough, or should I dig out my multimeter?

I reread your initial post, looks like the power error log 41 was due to you doing the reboot rather than a motherboard power circuit reset.

so it would come down to why the machine does not properly wake up from a sleep state.
I would run cmd.exe as an admin then run
powercfg.exe /energy
and look at the report.

if the system is going into hibernation I might make a new hibernation file. hiberfil.sys
basically run
powercfg.exe -h off
followed by
powercfg.exe -h on

this should delete the old one and make a new one.
I would do this after a bios update and motherboard driver updates are applied.

look at the energy report and see what sleep states are supported on your machine.

the next time it happens, find out if it is the monitor that is the problem. Some have their own sleep functions that have to have firmware updates. just unplug the monitor video cable and plug it back in and see if the video come back. if it is still wrong, then unplug just the monitor power and plug it back in and see if it has an effect.
this can help isolate the problem to the monitor or the cables or the sleep circuit in the monitor.
ie if pulling the monitor power and plugging back in makes the video come back then the problem is in the monitor. if just disconnecting the video and plugging back int then the problem might be the video circuit.
(could be adapters, cable, video driver, or monitor firmware, I have seen issues that happen only with adapters on a video cable on specific video interfaces, unplugging the adapter and plugging back in would get it to sync again)