Black Screens, Cursors and Phantom Monitors
Written on September 4, 2015 by Josh KeenanWindows 10 - A blank canvas?
Here you are, Windows 10 bound and excited for your new OS. Suddenly, you’re greeted with…nothing? This is a fairly common occurrence on computers that have taken the complimentary upgrade. Although Windows 10 is full of new features and improvements, there are still a few bugs. This particular bug refers to the Intel integrated graphics on your system. Simply said, the current driver creates a "phantom display". As such, your real, working display either shows up as a secondary, extended monitor or some of your programs may appear to open and then never appear on screen.
Solution
Thankfully, we have been able to come up with a workaround for this issue. Please see below:
- Restart the computer. Tap on the Delete key on the keyboard to get into the BIOS.
- Go to the Advanced Menu.
- Go to the System Agent Configuration selection.
- Go to the Graphics Configuration selection (you should see the screen below after selecting this).
- Go to the iGPU Multi-Monitor option and change it to Disabled.
- Press F10 to save and restart the computer.
We’ve found that this resolves many of the issues with the ‘Black Screen of Death’ on Win10. If you continue to have issues with your Puget Systems computer, please feel free to contact the Service & Support Department at support@pugetsystems.com.
As always, thank you for choosing Puget Systems!
Great information, Josh! Thank you for posting this to let folks know what is going on, and how to fix it!
Can't say I have ever been "excited for your new OS". New OS's are bound to be full of way too much stress. Heck, the last time I got a new computer, it took almost a month for me to finally force myself to take it out of the box. :)
I had not heard about this bug but man that one looks to be a doozey for people who don't know much about computers. Can't say I have ever advised anyone to go into the BIOS. Getting someone to go into the settings/preferences of an application is hard enough.
Thanks for this! I will soon be upgrading my Puget laptop to which I sometimes attach an external monitor. So, this fix is timely for me.
I assume that if I disable iGPU multi-monitor before I upgrade, this issue shouldn't arise. True?
After upgrading, do I simply go back into the BIOS and enable multi-monitor support, or are there additional steps I will need take? I do know I'll need to set up the second monitor through Windows after the upgrade.
Also, the screen shot to which Josh refers is not present in the article.
I'm not sure if this issue comes up on laptops, to be honest; if it does, I at least haven't heard complaints of it. And on desktops, it doesn't prevent use of multiple monitors attached to the same video card.
Yeah, this is specific to desktop systems. Laptops handle this differently and I haven't seen it happen on any of them, so no need to make the change there.
William and Christopher, thank you for clarifiying this for me, and for any for any others who have the same concern. Puget rocks!
I found 10 to be slow, crash often and I missed media player.