Desktop wallpaper goes black & clock in system tray stops~ 1 AM

Win 8.1 Pro

Intel MB graphics

2 DVI monitors

On only one of my Win 8.1 systems does this occur. I leave them all day. It is part of a domain. Screen goes into "turn off" mode after 2 hours. After midnight I lose the wallpaper (single image) and the screen is black. Icons are visible and when I hover over them, they appear. The day/time in the system tray is stalled at the time of "blanking". This just started happening. I apply MS patches regularly. I have to CTRL-ALT-DEL to reboot and the wallpaper comes back.

The other Win 8.1 Intel system also uses intel graphics and it does not have this problem.

Any tho

August 20th, 2014 6:50pm

Highly suggest you post in the appropriate Windows 8 forums found @ http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windows/en-US/home?category=w8itpro

This is a Windows 7 forum for the Windows 7 operating system.

Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
August 20th, 2014 7:04pm

Hi,

Let's try this:

First step: Show "Console lock display off timeout" to Advanced Power Settings.

1. Locate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power\PowerSettings\7516b95f-f776-4464-8c53-06167f40cc99\8EC4B3A5-6868-48c2-BE75-4F3044BE88A7

2. Find the Attributes DWORD key, change its value as "2".

After that, open your Advanced Power Settings, expand Display and Console lock display off timeout(screenshot as below).

3. Set how many minutes you want, and click/tap on OK.
NOTE: The default time is 1 minute. Setting this to 0 (zero) minutes will set the display to never turn off from the lock screen.

August 21st, 2014 10:18am

                                                      

That is curious. My comment shows

Windows 8.1 IT Pro > Windows 8.1 General

Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
August 21st, 2014 8:51pm

Did it, worked one day now back to black screen in morning (dual monitors)
August 23rd, 2014 5:23pm

                                                      

That is curious. My comment shows

Windows 8.1 IT Pro > Windows 8.1 General

August 23rd, 2014 9:42pm

Wall paper seems to survive overnight but the system tray will not work so I still have to reboot. Only this one system. Any thoughts?
August 26th, 2014 12:21am

Hi,

We could try to unlock the taskbar, and then open up the task manager, kill explorer.exe process and then re-open it for test.

In addition, the clock is controlled from the BIOS, Windows simply 'displays' what the BIOS tells it. The BIOS has its own battery which keeps the clock and other details viable in CMOS memory. The next time this occurs try closing down your computer and then reboot into the BIOS and check that the time in the BIOS is correct. If the time is still out in the BIOS it may be a BIOS problem rather than a Windows one.

Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
August 27th, 2014 10:04am

I'll try this. Question, how do you unlock task bar? The taskbar is non-responsive at this time.

Also, this is a domain computer. The clock is set from the domain controller and displayed on the taskbar.  That si why I know when the task bar & desktop go black.

August 27th, 2014 5:53pm

It still is going black screens, system tray frozen when it happens and outlook send/receive stops. Only on this Win8.1 system. Any thoughts as to why?
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
August 29th, 2014 11:41pm

Hi,

Did this issue occur for any other Windows 8.1 computer in domain?

Try to remove it from domain to check the result.

September 1st, 2014 9:39am

Only this system. I did check that the win 8 desktop(metro) was accessible; however, in the charms section, settings was missing.

Tonight, I'll switch to the native Win 8.1 account and see what happens and report back.

Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
September 1st, 2014 5:26pm

Hi,

How is the current situation?

Look forward to receiving your reply and tell us the current situation in order to provide further help.

September 3rd, 2014 11:28am

Interesting, I logged out of domain account and logged in as Microsoft live account. the wallpaper did not change overnight. I went back to the domain account and the wallpaper went black overnight.

Should I break the domain relationship and rejoin the domain?

Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
September 3rd, 2014 2:17pm

I broke the domain relationship and deleted the objects in Active Directory. I rejoined the domain but still come up with a "black" screen with the normal icons over night.

Any thoughts.

 I am concerned that this "black" screen represents an unauthorized RDP into the system. I ran an active Symantec scan and it founds nothing. I will turn the system off at night to preclude any unauthorized access. Only on the one system?

September 9th, 2014 6:26pm

In searching Intel forums (this is an Intel MB & Graphics adapter), I found that this is a problem across their MBs that they are attempting to resolve. I will close this out and work there.

Thanks for the help

Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
September 23rd, 2014 5:12pm

Current status:

Intel had no answer, MB out of support so  installed PCIe video card. Still background goes black (however, running programs are still running).

I have a "nice" desktop background from MS themes so I changed to simple line & color theme. The desktop did not go black; however, icons would not work, just like black screen.

Has anyone figured this one out or have the same pr

November 15th, 2014 8:10pm

I tried a fault isolation using MSCONFIG to turn off all services and selectively reboot with limited services enabled. After several days I have isolated the problem service to DYN Updater ( a DDNS sync).

I have sent them a support eMail and will keep everyone apprised of solution.

Fi

Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
November 22nd, 2014 9:36pm

This is still happening. I was on the system when it happened. I was in a RDP to the sever and saw it get "sluggish". I went to the Win 8.1 desktop and all icons were present but when I tried to open a IE site, the system tray froze, the screen flickered and then went to "black" background and brought up the Store window in metro.

All I could do was to close Outlook (yes you can work within open propgrams) and then did Ctrl-Alt-Del to restart.

 Any ideas?

February 16th, 2015 10:16am

I'm having the same problem on my home PC (Asus tower) running Windows 8.1 with a slideshow for the wallpaper.
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
March 19th, 2015 5:47pm

I'm having the same problem on my home PC (Asus tower) running Windows 8.1 with a slideshow for the wallpaper.
March 19th, 2015 9:45pm

I'm having the same problem on my home PC (Asus tower) running Windows 8.1 with a slideshow for the wallpaper.
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
March 19th, 2015 9:45pm

Here is what happens at the moment the screen background goes "black".

My now normal routine is to "restart" the system at night since the "Black Desktop Screen" is completely random on when it goes black. I was swiping the charms bar in to power->restart and the bar came in only half and all black. I immediately tried again and it was the black half bar and then the desktop screen went black and the icons on the primary screen were duplicated on the secondary screen. As always, any open program could be accessed and worked, i.e. Outlook mail read, etc. I then did my restart to clear the issue. No notification was made by the Win8.1 OS that it had a problem (because running programs are not affected).

Any ideas?

March 21st, 2015 2:32pm

Here is what is happening. After a normal system update, it went three whole days before going black background.

The configuration is dual screens with desktop extended. The main monitor is a 10 point touch screen and the secondary is a normal LCD screen. When it goes black background, It reverts to duplicate screens for the secondary, e.g. icons duped. It typically happens after several hours of non-use; I turn the monitor off with system settings. When It comes back, I get normal logon  and then opens to black screen backgrounds.

 I will keep posting to this in hope that someone can figure out what is happening.

Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
June 1st, 2015 12:57pm

I have upgraded to Win 10 and this error  no longer exists.
September 1st, 2015 12:27pm

This topic is archived. No further replies will be accepted.

Other recent topics Other recent topics