Welcome back, in today’s video we’ll be covering ways to fix a blank or black screen
in Windows 10. There are many reasons this can occur and hopefully we’ll find a fix
in this video. We’ll need to be starting in safe mode quite
often to check some of the possible solutions and I have a video which will show you how
to do that – even from a black screen and the link will be in the description. You’ll
need to skip to 1 minute 58 in that video for the correct method.
If the black screen appeared whilst you were working on a document, you can press Control
and the S key at the same time to save your work before we look at some of the fixes.
The first few solutions will be for those of you that get the black screen before you
even have a chance to log in. If this is the case, the most common issue will be with your
monitor and connections however there are potentially other causes. The first thing
to try will be to press the caps lock button, this will allow us to test if your PC is responding.
If it is responding, you’ll see the caps lock indicator light up on your keyboard.
If the light does appear, your PC is responding, and you can try refreshing the screen. You
can do this by pressing four buttons on your keyboard at the same time. These buttons are
the windows key, the control key, the shift key and the letter B key. When you press these
together, you’ll probably hear a beep and the screen will refresh. If you’re using
Windows 10 on a tablet PC, you can do this by pressing the volume up and down buttons
together 3 times within 2 seconds. If this doesn’t work, we’ll continue with some
more fixes. It’s now more likely that the connection
to your monitor, or the monitor itself is the problem. There are a few things to try.
Firstly, ensure that your monitor display is working, you should be able to check this
by bringing up the menu. If that works, the connection is probably the cause. This could
mean that the wires, or the ports are broken or faulty. Check the ports on your PC, monitor
and on the cable itself for any visible damage. If there is a minor cable problem, you may
see an image flicker on the screen, if this happens, you’ll need to determine whether
it’s the cable or the ports. If you have a spare cable, you could try using that. Also
ensure that your monitor is set to the correct input, it might be worth trying all the inputs
available just to check. You can also try using another video output on your PC, for
example if you can, use DisplayPort rather than HDMI or if you have more than one HDMI,
use another port. If you’re using a laptop, it might be worth
taking it to a repair shop to check for any internal connection faults. Also, depending
on your keyboard, try increasing the brightness. This method will be different depending on
the laptop manufacturer, you can search online for how to do this.
You can also try searching your graphics card, to see if there are any problems related to
it or if it is even supported by Windows 10. If the monitor, connections, or graphics card
isn’t the problem, it now could be caused by software. These fixes can be used whenever
you get the black screen, whether you are able log in or not or even if you get a blank
screen with a spinning loading circle. For these solutions, we’re going to need to
start in safe mode. The video will be linked in the description to show how to do that,
even from a black screen. When you start up, Windows will be running
with limited features. Firstly, we’re going to try uninstalling any software that may
have caused the problem. You’ll need to think about any recent software changes that
may have caused the black screen. To uninstall software, go to settings which can be accessed
from the start menu and then to apps. Find the programs from the list and select them
and click uninstall. If you use any third-party anti-virus software, that could be causing
the black screen so you could try uninstalling that. Restart your PC to check if these solutions
have worked at any time within safe mode. It may be worth waiting though for a few more
solutions, but feel free to try it now if you think software could be the cause.
We’ll now focus on our display drivers. We’re going to check if we can roll back
our drivers first, and to do this you’ll want to go to the device manager. You can
search for it in the search bar. In the device manager, find the option named display adapters
and click on it. Then right click on your graphics card and select properties. Now look
for where it says rollback driver and click on it if you can. If it’s greyed out, we
can also try updating our graphics card drivers. You can do that from within here too by clicking
on update driver and then choosing the automatic option. Alternatively, you can search for
a driver update and download and install it from the manufacturer’s website. Use the
info of your graphics card in the device manager to download the correct driver for your device.
You could also try uninstalling your device driver if you believe this to be the problem.
You may then need to reinstall it after restarting. It’s worth restarting your PC now if you
haven’t already to check if any of the fixes so far have worked.
If the problem has only just occurred since a recent Windows update, we can uninstall
that update to check if that fixes the problem. To uninstall a Windows update, firstly go
to the control panel. You can get there by searching for it. Then select programs and
then view installed updates which is in blue. Find the most recent Windows update that may
have caused the issue and right click on it, then select uninstall and follow the steps.
Next, we can try restoring Windows to a recent point. You’ll only need to do this though
if you think a recent change caused the problem. This will not affect any of your personal
files, however recent software installations and updates may be removed. To do this, search
for recovery in the search bar then click on open system restore. Then click next and
find the most recent restore point that is before the black screen first appeared. Select
it and click next, then finish. If the issue is still appearing after you
have restarted your PC, there are a few more things you could try. If you get the black
screen after logging in, try and open the task manager by pressing Control, Alt and
Delete at the same time, then select task manager. Alternatively, you can press Control,
Shift and Escape to open the task manager. In the task manager, try restarting the process
called Windows Explorer. Find Windows explorer from the list, right click on it and select
restart. The next thing to try will be to first shut
down your PC and then disconnect any devices, such as your mouse, keyboard and even ethernet
cables. Just leave your PC connected to the monitor and power and then restart. This exact
fix has helped me in the past, especially after a Windows update.
As always if you have any questions then feel free to leave them in the comments and I will
try my best to help you. I will also keep the description updated with new fixes so
check in there too and if any of you find a fix in the future then it would be great
if you could return to the video and post it in the comments to help others. I really
hope I was able to help you today, if I did make sure you leave a like and feel free to
subscribe. Thanks for watching and I will see you in another video.