Does this help anybody with 'Black-Screen' issues...

[DblGlazed7]

After wrestling with 'black screen' on wake up issues and 'Display driver stopped...' pop-ups, I joined the forum today and thought I'd start a thread with a copy of a reply I posted to some older threads on SevenForums related to this issue.

I think some of the black screen video driver troubles are being caused by either incompatible Power Plan settings... or poor uninstalls of older video drivers... or both.
...this is only a suspicion and nowhere near a certainty, which is really why I'm putting it out there.

(forgive the length or any redundancy to previous threads)


After a new PC build with a fresh install of Windows 7/64bit (build7600)... I saw the black screen and driver alert pop-up for the 1st time while troubleshooting some nvidia driver updates -- while putting my newly installed 3D apps through their paces, things would go black momentarily, but then come back with the "Display driver stopped responding and has recovered" message. I suspect I had conflicting video driver files or registry settings. ( I was experimenting with more than one driver versions)

All troubles seemed to go away, though, after uninstalling everything nvidia related (everything); running Guru3d.com's 'Driver Sweeper' after a reboot to SAFE MODE; ...and finally a regular reboot and fresh install of the latest and greatest nvidia driver (Forceware 191.66)

All was right with the world until...

I get the Black Screen with a lonesome mouse arrow pointer after waking the system from sleep (w/keyboard). Like many folks I've read about recently, I hear the system fans/disk powering up as normal, but have little to show for it apart from a white mouse pointer moving about a completely black screen.

My first impulse was to bring up the 'Windows Task Manager' which I prefer to do using Shift+Ctrl+Esc (rather than Ctrl+Alt+Del) ...I then noticed a subtle screen flicker and then presto, my desktop was back! ...along with the familiar pop-up about "Display driver stopped etc..."
This Task Manager call up resolved the black screen upon wake up trouble every time, but it lead me to suspect that since the system was coming up fine, but minus a working graphics card/driver, there could be something screwy with all the new-fangled power saving features and settings that try to optimize power efficiencies on devices such as cpu/fans/HDs/graphics boards/etc.

So...
I seemed (fer time being) to have resolved both my black screen issue AND the "Display driver stopped..." alert that follows by changing an advanced power setting related to the PCI Express slot within 'Power Options'.

Control Panel --> Power Options --> Select Power Plan
> Change Plan Settings (I kept it at 'Balanced')
>> Change Advance Power Settings
>>> (expand to) PCI Express
>>>> (expand to) Link State Power Management
>>>>> (select) OFF
Apply.

I would think that choosing 'High performance' power plan would work just as well (if not better), but I'd check the default PCI Express setting just the same.

I had read about some other unrelated system Wake up issues, so while I was at it, I also set...
>Change Advance Power Settings
>> Sleep
>>> Allow Wake Timers
>>>> Settings: DISABLE

After a bunch of sleep and keyboard wake tests, This seems to be workin' for me ...until of course it isn't.

Sure curious if there's anyone else out there with similar progress. Cheers.

 

[Tews]

Thanks for the heads up...

 

[Frostmourne]

Has anyone looked at BIOS settings, and the state of sleep, either S1 or S3?

 

[thefabe]

Thanks for the posting DblGlazed7 As this is an issue that has been like a plague for other members hopefully it will help them. Fabe