Windows 10 intermittent black screen

[DaveThomasZ]

I updated my Dell PC to Windows 10 as soon as it became available. It worked great. In February after one of the regular updates the system developed an intermittent black screen problem. After a time of perfect operation the system would lose its home page/application bar. Applications that were already running would continue to operate but once ended would not be visible. The only way to fix the problem is to switch off the PC and reboot. Or alternatively to wait (10's of minutes) for the system screen to recover . I've tried all the published potential fixes (reload driver, change power settings,unplug all hardware apart from the screen, boot in safe mode, trouble shoot etc.) but nothing works.

 

[Sagnik Pal]

Did you try to find out whether it was a hardware problem or not? Try connecting your computer to a different monitor, using different ports and see if the same thing happens. If the problem doesn't happen anymore, stick to your new monitor.
Is your GPU alright? I guess you must have got its latest drivers as you mentioned, but try also using a new GPU or one from another computer. You might also have to throw away your old GPU, if this fixes your problem.
Problems also occur if your GPU overheats. As you said the screen recovers in a matter of time, in this time the GPU may have cooled. I don't know whether GPU fans can be changed, but ask in a repair store, and also consider changing all other fans in your computer.

Didn't solve your problem? Head over to Settings > Update and security > System updates and make sure you have the latest updates installed. Try to fiddle around settings and control panel, to try and change any display or colour calibration settings you find. I guess you have time to do some research too.

Hope this Helps. Ask if you need help. Best of Luck!

 

[DaveThomasZ]

Sagnik, thanks for the rapid and detailed suggestions.
I'm not sure that it could be the monitor or the CPU overheating since when the home page/ application icons change to black any programs that are active at the time of the distruption remain operational. Thus one can continue to run Outlook/Explorer/Office/ video applictaionswithout any degradation. The issue is that when one of these application threads is shut down one cannot open the host application as there are no icosn on the screen. If there was a heating problem or a problem with the graphics processor or the display processor all application images would also not be shown..... which is not the case. This I believe points to a software problem where something in the code is temporarily preventing the display of the home page/icons.

 

[slooksterpsv]

Almost sounds like a memory problem. I would still run a check with an antimalware program and try creating a new user to run under. The new user would be fresh and clean could be a profile issue, antimalware to clean out any malware.

What kind of pc is it?