No more lockscreen, black screen and need to hold start button 10s to to go back into Windows

Hi everyone,

I've got a new XPS 15 9510 with Windows 11.
I didn't install a vanilla version of Windows this is the version of Windows that came with the laptop with a few Dell bloatware.

Anyway, today out of the blue Windows started behaving strangely.

Normally the screen turns off after a few min when not used, then to turn back on the screen I would touch the touchpad or press a key which would bring you to the lockscreen.

However, since earlier, when the screen turns off after not using the laptop, I'm stuck on a black screen, touching the touchpad or pressing a key no longer bring up the lockscreen.
The laptop is seemingly unresponsive, screen is black, keyboard lights up when I press a key but nothing on the screen.

Tried to hard reboot since I was stuck, so I press and hold the start button 10s and suddenly the screen turns on and I'm straight back into Windows without entering my password. Or maybe it authenticated me as I was pressing and holding the start button? (Start button is equipped with a fingerprint scanner)

Any idea how I can get back the normal behavior which is to display the lockscreen after the screen goes off?

Thanks

It looks like Windows Update replaced some of your laptop drivers with newer but not entirely compatible causing difficulty to wake from sleep. Have a look at the laptop Service Tag written at a sticker underneath. Go to Dell Support site and put your Service Tag to find your model. Download all Windows 11 drivers. If not available, download the respective Windows 10 64-bit drivers instead. Install the chipset driver first. Then proceed with the graphics driver. You may also download the latest graphics driver directly from nVidia, if you know your GPU model. After updating all drivers the issue should fix. In worst case you can backup your data and reinstall Windows 11. Make sure you have your drivers downloaded in a USB flash drive so you have them handy after installation.

spapakons said:

It looks like Windows Update replaced some of your laptop drivers with newer but not entirely compatible causing difficulty to wake from sleep. Have a look at the laptop Service Tag written at a sticker underneath. Go to Dell Support site and put your Service Tag to find your model. Download all Windows 11 drivers. If not available, download the respective Windows 10 64-bit drivers instead. Install the chipset driver first. Then proceed with the graphics driver. You may also download the latest graphics driver directly from nVidia, if you know your GPU model. After updating all drivers the issue should fix. In worst case you can backup your data and reinstall Windows 11. Make sure you have your drivers downloaded in a USB flash drive so you have them handy after installation.

Click to expand...

Thank you.
Do you think this was driven by a conflict between Dell's Support Assist app and Windows update?

Do you think I'm better off formatting my laptop and installing a fresh install of windows 11?

EDIT: Hehe guess what, I went to Dell support website, it recognised automatically my machine's service tag. Under "drivers & download" it gave me 2 options. "Let Dell automatically find drivers for you" or "Find manually drivers"

I thought I would check the automatic method to see what it would suggest and surprise it suggested a new driver for the Intel chipset.

Installed the new driver, rebooted and I was greeted with the lockscreen!

It's been fixed.

Thanks Spapakons your hunch was right.