Something unusual with desktop coming out of screensaver time out

I had an issue with a ssd drive that was causing, for example, cursor movement to stop briefly then jump ahead. Or games to stop then jump ahead. It got to a point that Steam (which was installed on this ssd) would sit in an 'updating Steam' mode whenever I started the PC and never complete. The PC even started rebooting on its own. I was on 23H2 when this was happening after the latest update.

I decided to reinstall Win 11 Pro from a USB ISO, keeping all my apps and settings. After the install, I noticed that I was at 24H2 build 26100.2894.

What I notice now is that whenever I come out of a screen saver timeout (I have a blank screen and timer is set for 5 minutes) my wallpaper appears along with a small 'block' of my desktop icons in the upper left of the display. After a brief second, the rest of the desktop appears.

I can live with this but I was wondering if anyone else has had this happen.

Instead of screensaver (which, along with "sleep" was actually never 100% perfected by Microsoft), set your display to power down after a defined period of inactivity (control panel - power options)

Please let me rephrase my question that used the wrong descriptions. I have the power options set to turn off the display after 5 minutes and should not have used 'screensaver' in my question.

So my problem is the display starting back up with the 'block' of desktop icons in the upper left, then a split second later the full desktop.

Install the latest graphics drivers just to see if that changes anything.

Reinstalled the latest Nvidia graphic driver and still have the problem. It's like Windows is unsure of what type of display I have even though it's correct in the display settings.

Check your SSD's health, if it is failing I would do a full disk backup. Then I would return it for replacement under Warranty, or just buy a new one if the Warranty has expired. Once I have the new disk, I would restore the backup and keep using my system without reinstalling. In Greek we say "ouden kakon amiges kalou", meaning "no bad comes without some good". This might be a good excuse I buy a larger or faster SSD.

From your description it's hard to tell whether this is an OS issue, a drive issue or even a video driver issue.
One question...Which actual ver and revision is your motherboard? I ask because there is a newer V2 motherboard as well as revision 1.0/1.2/1.3 although it may not matter so much with your particular issue.

Go here and download the Solidigm Toolkit to check/upgrade your Solidigm drives firmware. Locate Current And Update Solidigm™ SSD Firmware Using Solidigm Tools

Also check to ensure you are using the latest AMD Chipset driver for your motherboard. Make sure to check on the AMD website, not the Gigabyte site.

Two thoughts:

1) Make sure that you are using the latest graphics driver provided by the OEM if this is a system that came preloaded with Windows. This is especially important on laptops. In other words, if the manufacturer supplies video drivers, use that and NOT the generic drivers from Nvidia.

2) Secondly, if you are using DisplayPort, try HDMI if that is an option for you (at least as a test). There are times where you may see this type of behavior with DisplayPort but not HDMI depending upon the specific hardware and circumstances.

If all these fail, check your SSD health. A faulty disk can give delays while reading data.

Sorry about the delay here, under the weather. Ran a HDMI cable from the Asus Geforce RTX 4070 Super TI to the 4K monitor and rebooted. Waited for the time out and when moving the mouse, the display appeared with full desktop. Apparently the 9800X3D/4070 TI/4K monitor don't work well together using DisplaypPort. However, i reverted back to the DisplayPort because the visuals are much sharper, brighter, and better contrast. The HDMI looked washed out.

So thanks everybody. Seems AMD has some work to do.


As an aside, I've got a X670 Gigabyte Aorus Elite AX. I had previously updated the BIOS to FB3g. Using HWINFO over 60% of the CPU options were RED X, including SVM, which I use with VMWare. Went into the BIOS and the SVM option was not there, nada, nothing. This raised a red flag. Most of my games were running at 170F to 180F. Even briefly went to 190F. None of my previous AMD CPUs ever ran this hot. Loaded the previous BIOS FB3f and, lo and behold, the SVM option was back. Enabled EXPO, SVM, and a few other options and rebooted.

Used HWINFO again and most of the CPU options were now GREEN X including SVM.

ANYONE USING A X670 GIGABYTE AORUS ELITE AX, PLEASE DO NOT USE BIOS FB3g. IT LOOKS LIKE THIS IS A BAD BIOS. My games are now running around 140F - 150F with RT and Ultra settings.