[SOLVED] Lenovo Laptop : Black screen crash every three hours or so.

[GRGlasgow]

Lenovo V330-15IKB with 12GB ram, 256gb SSD HDD. Bios 62CN51WW.
Intel (r) Core (TM) i5-8250U CPU @ 1.60GHz

Windows 10 Version 1909 (OS Build 18363.1411)

System is crashing with a black screen on the laptop monitor. An external monitor connected via HDMI at the time of the crash shows a glitched screen rather than completely black. Sometimes the crash is accompanied by digital interference audio. Pics of screens at crash: Built in monitor. External monitor.

Laptop completely unresponsive - eg Num Lock key can't go on and off. A forced restart boots up a completely normal system. There are no errors showing in the Event Viewer at the time of the crash.
Laptop is out of warranty.

Crashes happen approximately every three hours.

Crashes can happen even if system is not being pushed to do anything remotely heavy.

Actions taken so far:

1. Rolled back bios from version 53. Lenovo said they had a known error with 53 and the newest windows release. I rolled back to version 52, and got crashes again. Rolled back to 51 - again crashes, so I've pretty much ruled out the bios / windows clash.
2. Full diagnostic system check with Lenovo utility. No obvious errors.
3. Full reinstall of Windows. Vanilla windows still crashed as I was setting up the account in the same way.
4. Updated all drivers to latest possible using Lenovo software.
5. Downloaded WDC software which confirmed that SSD drive had the latest firmware.
6. Tried various different power options both within windows and on display adapter software. Made no difference.
7. Reseated internal screen cables. This doesn't make sense anyway, because the laptop acts like normal immediately after the reboot. Still, you gotta try.

I'm all out of ideas. If you have any, I'd really appreciate it if you could share them with me.

 

[Lutfij]

Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

You should be on version 20H2 for your OS. Id' suggest you backup any and/or all critical content and then reinstall the OS after fabricating a bootable USB installer using Windows Media Creation Tools. You might also want to stop backtracking on the BIOS since you can and will brick the laptop beyond recovery. If you must work with BIOS, make sure you're moving forward, not backwards.

Manually download the drivers for your laptop and then manually install the drivers, in an elevated command, i.e Right click installer>Run as Administrator.

Did you clean the cooling fan assembly?

 

[GRGlasgow]

Hi. Thanks for replying.

So, I had checked Windows Update but it showed that there were no updates. But your message showed that this wasn't accurate. (I don't know if there's a reason Lenovo laptops don't show the windows updates accurately?)

I found a way to update windows to 20H2 as per your recommendations rather than doing a fresh install. It seems to have worked. Whereas before there were crashes every three hours or so, I'm currently at 10 hours plus without a crash, and I've really been pushing the laptop.

Thanks for your help. If I go another couple of days without a crash then I will be satisfied that the problem has gone away permanently, and I'll mark your response as 'best answer' / solved.

Thank you!

 

[GRGlasgow]

Ok, so it did the same sort of black screen crash again.
Laptop had only been on for a minute so temperature issues can't really be the problem.
Any other ideas?

 

[GRGlasgow]

Here's an update.

I left the laptop on at the bios. All night, it didn't crash. This morning, I picked up the laptop and started pressing keys and then it crashed. I've now noticed that if you tap the laptop with a little force on the left - around the left CTRL key - it will trigger the crash.

I took the laptop apart to see if I could spot anything. Maybe something causing a short. I removed the motherboard and looked on both sides but there was nothing obvious. I took the opportunity to clean the laptop and replace the thermal paste.

It's definitely a physical issue and not related to windows or drivers. Is there anything I can do to narrow down the issue further?

Thanks

 

[GRGlasgow]

New update : If I remove the Crucial 8gb memory stick I bought, all the errors go away.

Putting the solution here in case anyone else has the same problem.