Question MSI Laptop/ White Screen

[MSIDayton]

Hardware: MSI Raider GE78 HX 13v
OS: WIndows 11
Display Adapters: Intel UHD Graphics and NVIDIA Geforce RTX 4070

Ok, yesterday when I booted up, the initial boot screen was normal, but when the windows login screen came up, it was all white, with just faint shadows that showed the login box, so I know it booted up to windows. Powered down and googled on another laptop and tried everything I could find:

1. Hard power off by holding the power button.
2. Booted in safe mode, and the screen was normal. Safe mode with networking doesn't work on Windows 11, so I couldn't update drivers, but I went through the motions and it searched on the PC and everything was normal.
3. Couldn't uninstall updates in Safe Mode, so I couldn't try that.
4. Connected a second monitor, and low and behold, both monitors were normal- no white screen. But, it was apparent that both screens were controlled by the NVIDIA controller.
5. Disconnected the external monitor while it was booted up, and the laptop monitor stayed normal, although the wallpaper changed.
6. Rebooted without the external monitor connected, and I was back to the white screen again.

So, the laptop monitor only works if I have an external monitor connected on startup, and then I can disconnect it.

My wild guess is that there is something wrong with the Intel graphics, and the laptop monitor gets jump-started by the external monitor and remains connected to the NVIDIA for the duration of that session? But why would it work in Safe Mode with no monitor connected?

Any ideas? I'm no expert, but can check out anything as needed.

Thanks!

 

[KingLoki]

How old is the laptop?

 

[MSIDayton]

How old is the laptop?

About 9 months.

 

[KingLoki]

Would be under warranty ? If so, is it easy to get fixed under that?

 

[KingLoki]

Can you install the gpu driver from the manufacturer website using external monitor?

 

[MSIDayton]

I did a clean install of the NVIDIA driver, but no changes. I ran the Intel troubleshooting app, and it found no problems. I rolled back a couple of recent Windows updates, but nothing changed. Ran Windows update again to bring everything current.

I'm not taking it to Microcenter because this is a work laptop with multiple VMs and proprietary designs. And, if they wanted to reset the laptop or reinstall windows, I wouldn't do that without first buying a new laptop and porting everything over and verifying it works first.

I was just trying to understand whether this is a hardware or software problem, because it really seems like it has something to do with software since it works in Safe Mode.

 

[KingLoki]

Oh ok, good move. Select model and see if they have the intel gpu driver install package from Drivers/Downloads section.

https://www.msi.com/Laptop/Raider-GE78-HX-13VX/support?sub_product=Raider-GE78HX-13VH