Laptop screen blacks out randomly
A
couple weeks ago my laptop screen started turning off randomly. It took
me a while to figure out that the computer was still running, the
screen just shut off. Closing and reopening the lid turns it back on,
sometimes for the rest of the time my computer is on, sometimes just for
a few seconds. There is apparently no way at all to trigger it, it just
happens.
I hooked it up to an external monitor (and set it to duplicate the screen), and the external monitor doesn't shut off when the laptop screen does, so I know it's not a video card issue. I've also run full scans with Malwarebytes and MSE, so I'm sure it's not a virus/malware problem. Also, I was able to make the screen turn back on by changing how to use the dual monitor setup with the other monitor connected. (Changing from "duplicate desktop" to "extend desktop" and vice versa) Which means either my LCD screen or backlight or something is messed up, or else my computer randomly thinks the screen is closing for some reason (since it's just set to turn off the screen when the lid closes, not shut down or anything). And if it thought the screen was being closed, I'm pretty sure it would come back on as soon as I moved the screen a bit, and wouldn't have to completely close and reopen it to correct the issue. For these reasons, I'm fairly certain it's an LCD-related hardware issue, but I really don't know how to be sure.
So I have two questions:
1) can anyone help me confirm/correct my theory about what's going wrong (and tell me how to fix it?), and
2) as a short-term workaround, is there any way I can create a shortcut on my desktop that can be clicked to refresh the screen? Not like an f5 refresh, I mean to totally refresh the whole screen like what happens when changing screen resolutions. Because that seems to bring it back, and would be easier/faster than having to keep closing and opening the lid.
Also: I never get any errors related to this, and device manager doesn't show any problems with anything. I suppose Event Manager could have info about it, but I have no idea where to look in there.
Thanks!
I hooked it up to an external monitor (and set it to duplicate the screen), and the external monitor doesn't shut off when the laptop screen does, so I know it's not a video card issue. I've also run full scans with Malwarebytes and MSE, so I'm sure it's not a virus/malware problem. Also, I was able to make the screen turn back on by changing how to use the dual monitor setup with the other monitor connected. (Changing from "duplicate desktop" to "extend desktop" and vice versa) Which means either my LCD screen or backlight or something is messed up, or else my computer randomly thinks the screen is closing for some reason (since it's just set to turn off the screen when the lid closes, not shut down or anything). And if it thought the screen was being closed, I'm pretty sure it would come back on as soon as I moved the screen a bit, and wouldn't have to completely close and reopen it to correct the issue. For these reasons, I'm fairly certain it's an LCD-related hardware issue, but I really don't know how to be sure.
So I have two questions:
1) can anyone help me confirm/correct my theory about what's going wrong (and tell me how to fix it?), and
2) as a short-term workaround, is there any way I can create a shortcut on my desktop that can be clicked to refresh the screen? Not like an f5 refresh, I mean to totally refresh the whole screen like what happens when changing screen resolutions. Because that seems to bring it back, and would be easier/faster than having to keep closing and opening the lid.
Also: I never get any errors related to this, and device manager doesn't show any problems with anything. I suppose Event Manager could have info about it, but I have no idea where to look in there.
Thanks!
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