[SOLVED] Wake from sleep, log in to MS account, get only black screen with mouse, but not all the time. Why?

[King_V]

I tried to cram it all in the subject line.

It doesn't happen every time, and I believe it doesn't matter whether she manually puts the computer in sleep mode, or if it's when it's left alone and goes to sleep on its own. It definitely has happened in the latter case, but I can't recall for sure if it ever happened in the former case.

Move the mouse or hit a key, and the computer wakes, and requests a password. She can enter the password, and if the problem occurs, rather than logging her in, the screen goes black. The mouse pointer is visible, and will move with the mouse, but nothing else happens.

This has never happened with my account, but my account is a local one, not a Microsoft Account. Additionaly, I only use her PC very rarely.

Specs:

• Dell Precision T1700
• Radeon R7 250E GPU with Adrenalin 21.5.2 drivers (the latest available for this legacy GPU)
• Intel Xeon E-1226 v3 (Haswell, 4c/4t)
• 32GB RAM (4x4GB)
• 500GB SSD (Crucial MX500, 404GB free of 465GB total capacity)
• Windows 10 Pro
  • Version: 21H2
  • OS Build: 19044.1415
  • Experience: Windows Feature Experience Pack 120.2212.3920.0

Other than this specific issue, the PC gives us no problems at all.

I've tried disabling Hybrid Sleep mode, as was suggested elswhere when I did a search on this, but the problem persists. I've just run a full scan with Malwarebytes, and it comes up clean.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Colif]

So its a super new PC then...

I would guess its drivers.

download and run Driverview - http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/driverview.html

All it does is looks at drivers installed; it won't install any (this is intentional as 3rd party driver updaters often get it wrong)

When you run it, go into view tab and set it to hide all Microsoft drivers, will make list shorter.

Now its up to you, you can look through the drivers and try to find old drivers, or you can take a screenshot from (and including)Driver name to (and including)Creation date.

upload it to an image sharing website and show link here

All I would do is look at driver versions (or dates if you lucky to have any) to see what might have newer versions.

Win 10 lets you sync settings, its possible the difference you get and her is from server collecting data for her user

How to delete Windows 10 settings synced to a Microsoft account - Pureinfotech

You can delete your Windows 10 settings synced to your Microsoft account to completely disable the feature, or to start fresh with a clean set of preference that will sync across your devices. Here's how to to do it. Read more...

pureinfotech.com

 

[King_V]

Belatedly coming back to this . . but the idea of using the tool to examine drivers, well, just mentioning drivers, really, gave me a different thought.

And, today, the computer was possessed. Screen went blank, she tried to restart to no avail. I walk downstairs, see the black screen, and the white LED backlight of her keyboard flickering irregularly.

That sort of unsteady flickering pattern that, in movies, lets you know that something is haunted/possessed, and that walking there alone was a TERRIBLE idea.

I hit a few keys and moved the mouse - it must've caught something, as the screen came back up, although the PC wouldn't otherwise respond to the keyboard or mouse (mouse stuck)

I tapped the power button, and it shut down gracefully.

Rebooted, ran a virus scan (clean), then checked device manager. There were two devices missing drivers (SM Bus, and I think some other kind of port, I should've screen-capped it).

I then went to Windows Update, and it said there were no updates to be had. I then looked at the optional updates...

Whoa.

Over a half-dozen Intel drivers... definitely the SM Bus, as well as for the Xeon processor, and a few others. I installed them all.

At the very least, Device Manager is happy now, with nothing missing any drivers. So far the computer's behaving fine, but I'm letting it sit while logged in with my gf's account open, until it goes into sleep mode. Hopefully this took care of it. If not, I'll get Driverview up and running on it and post back here again.