Why does my screen randomly go blank?

[WPCentral Question]

Randomly the screen goes blank

I'm running Windows 8.1 with all current updates, on my Surface 3, but the screen is going black and refuses to respond, no matter how long I leave it to sit and 'calm down'
This has been happening for the last week, randomly. Sometimes I can be using my tablet for over an hour, sometimes 10 minutes.

The only change I have made is installing an anti virus program on it (Norton)

I just need to know if this is a software issue, and is affecting others... or is it a hardware problem, meaning I need to contact microsoft

 

[ssapre]

Re: Randomly the screen goes blank

I just need to know if this is a software issue, and is affecting others... or is it a hardware problem, meaning I need to contact microsoft

You can try to refresh it from Settings menu to see if its a software problem and if it goes with that. There are options to refresh it with saving your personal stuff as it is OR to do a full reset if you wish.

 

[GizmoEV]

I had several issues, one of them the screen not wanting to come back on after it went to sleep. I finally did a full refresh, the one you would do if you were going to sell it. On first boot after wards, I turned off windows updates and finished setting it up. I did not restore from a backup. Once things were up and running I manually did a check for updates. I then unchecked all updates and then only selected the firmware update and installed that. After that was done and the Surface rebooted I installed the remaining Windows updates. This did wonders for my Surface. It is running almost flawlessly now. It only sometimes takes a while to wake from a sleep but that is about it. Battery life is improved, WiFi and cellular connections work reliably, the touch screen hasn't been quitting on me. I highly recommend a full refresh. I'm on a 4GB/128GB LTE model with Win 8.1 Pro.

 

[budney]

Re: Randomly the screen goes blank

This sounds like the issue I am having. The screen goes blank, and touches register on the bottom half. Then when I hit the power button twice I just get the WiFi icon. To get my S3 back to normal I need to reboot it. I made a short video, I will see if I can post it here.