Identify and Prevent Update Leading to Black Screen

Question

While working on Windows normally, suddenly my screen turned black and I would constantly hear the USB-connection sound. A reboot attempt went through until the Windows logo was displayed alongside an endlessly spinning circle, while playing the same USB-connection sound over and over.

I dual boot Arch Linux, so I naturally tried to boot it instead: everything works fine there. Hence, I concluded it is not a hardware problem, but perhaps a driver issue.

Thus, I tried safe booting into Windows, but as soon as I enter my login credentials and proceed past the login screen, my keyboard loses power (it has key-illumination) though the desktop is displayed normally. Swapping USB ports had no effect and neither did swapping the keyboard for an old spare. Sadly I don't have a PS/2 keyboard around to try that too.

Any ideas are appreciated.

UPDATE: Performing a system restore temporarily undoes this behavior, allowing Windows to even start normally (i.e., not in safe mode). However, if left unattended for a few minutes, the problem reoccurs. How do I find out which updater/service is the culprit and prevent it from executing?

@Twisty Eventually restoring or reinstalling Windows is the only option, I know. If possible, I'd like to avoid it though, since my last restore point lies half a year in the past. — ride_on_the_NOP_sled, Jun 03 '17 at 19:55
This answer is about a mouse but the problem is the same. Some comments may be useful. [link](https://superuser.com/questions/53740/why-is-my-usb-mouse-disconnecting-and-reconnecting-randomly-and-often) — spike_66, Jun 04 '17 at 06:35
@Twisty All I know is that the boot time restore point wizard presents me only one restore point, which is six months old. Are there additional, hidden restore points which may be activated? — ride_on_the_NOP_sled, Jun 04 '17 at 09:24
@spike_66 Thanks! Great link. However, I cannot directly access the control panel or device manager. Guess I'll look around to see if they have a command line interface as well, since that is apparently my only way of interacting with the system. — ride_on_the_NOP_sled, Jun 04 '17 at 09:31
@Twisty I don't know how my ape brain missed it, but there was a show more arrow to click. I've restored the system to a point two weeks back. It booted fine and seemed to be fixed, but while I was posting an answer to this thread, the same thing happened again. Black screen, disconnect sound. I'm now almost certain it has to do with some incompatible update being installed. I'll try and restore again. Then how do I proceed? — ride_on_the_NOP_sled, Jun 04 '17 at 12:35
Since your question doesn't have any answers, you can "change" it by editing it to indicate you can temporarily undo this behavior by running System Restore, but need to know how to prevent the behavior from repeating. — I say Reinstate Monica, Jun 04 '17 at 12:48
@Twisty Thanks for your meta information. Do you recommend changing the title as well, or is that bad practice? I had in mind: "Identify and Prevent Update leading to Black Screen" — ride_on_the_NOP_sled, Jun 04 '17 at 13:02
As long as your question has no answers, you can edit with considerable freedom. Your question has materially changed and you should do whatever edits necessary to reflect that. — I say Reinstate Monica, Jun 04 '17 at 15:44

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 05 '17 at 17:57

Staring intently at the task manager process list after a system restore, I figured that the issue seems to be triggered by the Windows task drvinst.exe, occurring shortly after it spawns.

By chance I stumbled upon: https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/1003254/381-65-in-creators-update-black-screen/

It looks like there is some incompatibility issue with recent GeForce drivers and the Creators Update. Getting rid of them also doesn't fully address the problem, because Windows just reinstalls them through automatic driver updates.

Thus, I was able to fix the issue by:

Performing a system restore through the recovery environment at boot time
Terminating the drvinst.exe task at the moment of inception
Disabling automatic driver updates through "System -> Advanced System Settings -> Hardware -> Device Installation Settings"
Uninstalling Nvidia Drivers, reverting them to the Windows default.

It's no long-term solution, but at least I can work again until a fix is released. I still have no clue how graphics drivers can disable power to the keyboard in safe mode though. Would have been way easier to do, if I didn't have to race a driver installer in the first place.

Identify and Prevent Update Leading to Black Screen

1 Answers1