Question Windows 10 sometimes locks while it's in use

unplanned bacon

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Jan 11, 2014
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I'll be doing something and the computer then locks as if I'd hit the Windows + L shortcut. What is this and is it fixable? Is it some sort of bug maybe?

EDIT: What actually happens is the screen times out when it's in use and goes to a black screen, even when watching a video. I've had this happen playing a game before too
 
Last edited:

Colif

Win 11 Master
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Hi... can you remind me what is in your PC?

Nvm, I found it:
CPU: i5 4570
Motherboard: MSI Z97 Gaming 7
Ram: Corsair Vengeance 16 GB
SSD/HDD: 120 GB Samsung 840 Evo, 2 TB WD Black and 2 TB WD Green
GPU: Asus GTX 780
PSU: Antec Truepower 750 W 80+ Gold
Chassis: Corsair Obsidian 750D
OS: Windows 10

can you look in reliability history and see if any errors happen at same time as blank screen?

is monitor showing as on or off?

Screen shouldn't time out, more likely GPU is not reacting to WIndows Desktop managers attempts to wake it up, so screen swaps to using basic display drivers that may not be able to supply monitor signal it wants. Its a software error probably.
 

unplanned bacon

Distinguished
Jan 11, 2014
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Hi... can you remind me what is in your PC?

Nvm, I found it:
CPU: i5 4570
Motherboard: MSI Z97 Gaming 7
Ram: Corsair Vengeance 16 GB
SSD/HDD: 120 GB Samsung 840 Evo, 2 TB WD Black and 2 TB WD Green
GPU: Asus GTX 780
PSU: Antec Truepower 750 W 80+ Gold
Chassis: Corsair Obsidian 750D
OS: Windows 10

can you look in reliability history and see if any errors happen at same time as blank screen?

is monitor showing as on or off?

Screen shouldn't time out, more likely GPU is not reacting to WIndows Desktop managers attempts to wake it up, so screen swaps to using basic display drivers that may not be able to supply monitor signal it wants. Its a software error probably.

The only thing that stopped working yesterday that's recorded in reliability history was Media Server Service
 

unplanned bacon

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Jan 11, 2014
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have you got latest drivers from Nvidia?

which connection is it using on GPU? DVI? HDMI? Display port?

both versions of 780 have all 3 (Asus have 3gb version and 6gb version it seems)

If Display Port, this could help: https://www.nvidia.com/object/nv-uefi-update-x64.html

HDMI. I thought I had the latest drivers, but GeForce Experience says there's a new one waiting. I'll update later today