The Dreaded Windows 11 Blank Screen

Count yourself lucky if you haven’t yet encountered the dreaded Windows 11 blank screen.

My friend had his first vis-a-vis with this quiet monster within 2 weeks of getting a brand new Lenovo laptop.

Causes

I couldn’t find a definite way to know what exactly is causing the blank screen problem. According to what I could find online, it could be caused due to one or more of many probably causes. Here is a list of most probable causes I have narrowed down while trying to troubleshoot the aforementioned friend’s computer.

1. A windows update went kaput
2. Your display drivers are busted
3. You installed an application that corrupted something
4. Your display hardware is busted (bad)

Troubleshooting

If you’re lucky, one or more of the following would be true for your case:

:heavy_check_mark: Your screen goes blank on login, but at least sometimes it shows up after waiting for a while

:heavy_check_mark: You have at least some restore points on your machine before you or windows update or some other automation made any changes

:heavy_check_mark: You don’t use a Windows computer for anything important, so you don’t have any such data you can’t afford to lose ¹ on this machine

:heavy_check_mark: You at least see the lock screen in all its glory

:heavy_check_mark: You at least see the mouse cursor after logging in, even though that is the only thing you see and the rest of it is just beautiful velvety blank (grey/black)

:heavy_check_mark: You at least see the soft overlays that show up on pressing the NumLock and CapsLock keys fading in and out on the beautiful blank screen

::: alert This is just for trying the custom markdown thing in hugo based on a forum post. Does this work? :::