Screen blanks as if rebooting but then all windows exactly as before.

Has happened 4 or 5 times (that I know of, would not know if happened while PC is in lock status) in the last month.

I'll be typing or reading the screen and screens go black and a few seconds later both display the connection type (HDMI, etc). A few seconds later, the lock screen appears, and I enter my PIN and everything is exactly as it was when the screens went blank.

Today was the first time I looked but no errors or warnings in the system event log but does include strange (to me) information messages:

The time provider 'VMICTimeProvider' has indicated that the current hardware and operating environment is not supported and has stopped. This behavior is expected for VMICTimeProvider on non-HyperV-guest environments. This may be the expected behavior for the current provider in the current operating environment as well.

The time provider NtpClient is currently receiving valid time data from time.windows.com,0x9 (ntp.m|0x9|0.0.0.0:123->40.119.6.228:123).




No PC hardware changes for 6 months.

C: drive 1TB Samsung 980 Pro NVMe
D: drive 1TB SPCC NVMe

Any ideas for what's wrong or how to fix?

1. Have you updated recently
2. Is there an update to install
3. Go to run (Windows + R) , enter powercfg.cpl and select High performance plan, then click change plan settings
4. 
5. Click change advanced power settings.
6. Now, go to PCI Express, then Link state power management
7. 
8. Ensure Setting is OFF.

That's all for now let me know how you get on

James said:

1. Have you updated recently
2. Is there an update to install
3. Go to run (Windows + R) , enter powercfg.cpl and select High performance plan, then click change plan settings
4. View attachment 51997
5. Click change advanced power settings.
6. Now, go to PCI Express, then Link state power management
7. View attachment 51998
8. Ensure Setting is OFF.

That's all for now let me know how you get on

Click to expand...

All settings were already like that.

Microsoft updates are up to date. I install all updates as soon as available.

I kept having similar behaviour but it never reverted back to lock screen. I looked in Event Viewer and found this. I removed all my display drivers and re-installed them. Has not happened since....Hope that helps.

I've only had that happen when Windows decides it's time to install a new Display driver or some such.
I've grown accustomed to it.

Display driver might be it. This started after the last Intel display driver update. But also after the last Windows update. I have rolled back the video driver.

I wish I had never started using Intel's update service. I've never seen a single update that wasn't just to address some gaming issue. I don't do any games on this box. I would like to revert back to whatever MS installs with W11 for my hardware. The only reason I started installing the relatively frequent Intel driver updates was that was easier than being constantly bugged if I didn't say okay to one. Didn't occur to me that new ones would be a problem.

I tried uninstalling the device but scan for new just reinstalled the exact same driver which must mean the scan found and used the intel pushed driver on my system OR the driver MS pushes is the same as that one. Time for some research. If I find a way to reinstall whatever driver MS does with a W11 install, I'll uninstall the Intel update service and rely on Windows update for critical driver updates and check optional driver updates if I have a specific problem.