Dear Community
I often use my computer to run long-lasting tasks over night. Because of that, power saving mode is disabled on my system, but it is configured to turn off the screens after being idle for 20 minutes.
About one year ago, I noticed a strange issue where my PC failed to operate correctly after comming back from screen-off-mode to screen-on-mode. Here is the issue:
WhenI come back to my PC, I move the mouse or press some keys to tell Windows to turn on the screens again. This always works, i.e. I can see my Desktop and open programms, but Windows is frozen and no longer responds to anything. I cannot move the cursor nor can I use any keyboard inputs to do anything. Only a hard-reset will do the job.
Back then, this issue happened randomly and only in some rare cases, i.e. most of the time the computer comes back to work normally. Over time, the frequency of this problem increased more and more. As of today, being frozen after the screens turned off is the rule rather than the exception. Since it became very annoying, I tried to dig into the problem, but was unable to find a solution yet.
First of all, here is the Hardware I use:
1. GPU Drivers
I update my display drivers on a regular basis. Since I first encountered the issue, I have installed several different display drivers. This never seemed to have an impact.
2. Windows 10 reinstallation
I thought that the problem might be caused by Windows itsel. So I first tried to repair the system by searching for damaged files and then also tried a complete reinstallation of the Windows Operating System. The problem continued to exist after reinstalling Windows, so this was also not the cause.
3. Turn off screen saver
Also did not solve the problem. The PC randomly freezes no matter if the screen saver is turned on or off.
4. Turn off fast boot
Probably unrelated to the problem, but I disabled it anyway since it is known to cause many troubles.
5. Testing under which conditions the PC freezes
I thouth that the freezes might be caused by heavy computations or only when a specific software is running. However, I could not link the problem to any specific task. For example, I could observe the freezing while the PC was running heavy computations, while being completely idle, or while doing downloads in the background. Any attempt to deterministically force the freezing problem has failed so far.
6. Monitoring system temperature
Maybe overheating is the problem? I monitor and control my cooling system using a software called aquasuite, which also allows me to log temperature values. When the freezes happen, I cannot see any cooling issues (temperatures mostly stay below 40°C).
Other things worth mentionning
Thanks to anyone who has an idea how to address this problem.
I often use my computer to run long-lasting tasks over night. Because of that, power saving mode is disabled on my system, but it is configured to turn off the screens after being idle for 20 minutes.
About one year ago, I noticed a strange issue where my PC failed to operate correctly after comming back from screen-off-mode to screen-on-mode. Here is the issue:
WhenI come back to my PC, I move the mouse or press some keys to tell Windows to turn on the screens again. This always works, i.e. I can see my Desktop and open programms, but Windows is frozen and no longer responds to anything. I cannot move the cursor nor can I use any keyboard inputs to do anything. Only a hard-reset will do the job.
Back then, this issue happened randomly and only in some rare cases, i.e. most of the time the computer comes back to work normally. Over time, the frequency of this problem increased more and more. As of today, being frozen after the screens turned off is the rule rather than the exception. Since it became very annoying, I tried to dig into the problem, but was unable to find a solution yet.
First of all, here is the Hardware I use:
- CPU: Intel i5-9600K
- GPU: Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070
- Mainboard: MSI MPG Z390 Gaming Pro Carbon
- Monitors: 2x AOC 2590G4 (connected via Display Port)
1. GPU Drivers
I update my display drivers on a regular basis. Since I first encountered the issue, I have installed several different display drivers. This never seemed to have an impact.
2. Windows 10 reinstallation
I thought that the problem might be caused by Windows itsel. So I first tried to repair the system by searching for damaged files and then also tried a complete reinstallation of the Windows Operating System. The problem continued to exist after reinstalling Windows, so this was also not the cause.
3. Turn off screen saver
Also did not solve the problem. The PC randomly freezes no matter if the screen saver is turned on or off.
4. Turn off fast boot
Probably unrelated to the problem, but I disabled it anyway since it is known to cause many troubles.
5. Testing under which conditions the PC freezes
I thouth that the freezes might be caused by heavy computations or only when a specific software is running. However, I could not link the problem to any specific task. For example, I could observe the freezing while the PC was running heavy computations, while being completely idle, or while doing downloads in the background. Any attempt to deterministically force the freezing problem has failed so far.
6. Monitoring system temperature
Maybe overheating is the problem? I monitor and control my cooling system using a software called aquasuite, which also allows me to log temperature values. When the freezes happen, I cannot see any cooling issues (temperatures mostly stay below 40°C).
Other things worth mentionning
- As far as I can tell, the computer runs very stable with no issue. The PC runs for many hours each day doing heavy computations all day long without ever causing problems. The freezes only happen when I try to wake up the computer after it turned off the screens.
- Yes I know that disabling screen power saving is a valid option to solve the problem. But I really do not want my screens to be turned on all day and night when the PC is doing computations in the background.
- Since I have a dual-monitor setupt, I use a third party software called Display Fusion Pro (ver 9.9) to manage my screens. The problem could be related to this software.
Thanks to anyone who has an idea how to address this problem.
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