Windows 11 doesnt boot / black screen

Question

Hello!

My PC:

Intel Core i5-13600K

MSI PRO Z690-A DDR4 WiFi

GTX 1060 6GB

32GB G.Skill RipJaws V DDR4-3600

 2TB Western Digital Black SN770 PCIe 4.0

850W - Corsair RMe Series

be quiet! Dark Rock 4

Windows 11 Home 64 Bit

I have this PC since February 2023 and it never crashed once, no blue or black screens, no freezes. I basically used the computer every single day.

I didnt change any of the Windows (update) settings, everything is on auto or whatever the factory setting was.

So the computer was always up to date.

Sadly, since today i have a problem with my PC. The PC starts normal, the Win 11 login screen pops up

and here is already the first sign that something isnt right. Normally, while staying on the login screen,

i can see that its loading the Nvidia brightness / contrast settings in the background because the image is slightly changing after 2 seconds.

Also normally the screen goes into stand by mode if i dont press anything.

But since today, its not loading the Nvidia brightness / contrast settings and the screen never goes into stand by mode.

So i enter my password and all i see next is a black screen. A black image, the screen is still turned on but the display doesnt show anything.

I can open the task manager with Strg Alt Del and see that basically everything looks normal in that list but thats all. Nothing happens.

Theres no desktop, theres no windows bar, nothing.

So i tried the Win + Strg + Shift + B key command and i can see that it refreshes the screen for 1 second but again, nothing happens after that.

Then i tried to create a new task, i wrote explorer.exe into it hoping that it would restart the explorer and show my desktop again

but nothing happened.

The only thing so far that helped, was the Windows recovery tool through the Windows repair screen (three failed Windows boots).

I chose a Windows version from early December 2023 and that actually worked. The PC restarted and everything was back to normal.

Desktop, browser, all there, no errors, no problems.

But then Windows auto update installed the missing updates from between that early December version

until December 19 and after a restart the exact same problem happened again. No desktop, black screen.

Resetting the BIOS options didnt do anything, starting the PC without keyboard, mouse, audio etc didnt do anything.

Starting the PC with the onboard graphics card instead of the 1060 didnt do anything. Manually updating the 1060 driver didnt do anything.

I cant find anything unusual in the Windows service list. All of the services are from Microsoft, my audio interface and so on. Nothing strange.

Since February 2023 i didnt change any hardware in my PC. The Windows service auto repair tool didnt find any problems.

The Windows defender didnt find any problems.

So for now i have used the Recovery tool twice to get the PC working again. One time with the newest updates on top

after i was able to login (restart = broken)

and then one time and immediately pausing the Windows updates for 4 weeks. Then the restart worked. No problem.

When i enter DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth into the command prompt, something is loading in the window

but it stops at 62% and thats it. Nothing happens. sfc /scannow doesnt find any problems.

There are no warnings in the device manager. Crystaldiskinfo shows that the SSD health is at 100%.

There are zero graphical issues, not on the desktop, not in the browser, not while watching videos, not while playing games.

All temperatures are normal.

In the Windows reliability display it never showed any (big) errors until today.

Nothing strange happened yesterday, i turned the computer off like on any other day. So what do i do now?

Because the same problem will probably happen again in 4 weeks when Windows is trying to install all the missing updates.

What are my options?

Thank you!

Answer 1

Hello Tosh Mackins,

Welcome to Microsoft Community and we regret the inconvenience caused to you.

Thank you for your detailed description and near professional troubleshooting to better identify this issue. Windows updates is to improve the security of the machine and solve some potential vulnerabilities and bugs. As updates for a component are released so sometimes it causes some minor problems such as compatibility issues, like this… So this will indeed cause a little bit trouble for end users, and we have been focusing on creating a system that makes users more comfortable. That is how to ensure the safety of the machine without affecting the operation of other programs.

Because Windows cannot prevent updates from being pushed then we just choose to pause updates or turn off automatic updates.

In Windows Update > Pause for x weeks. This is the easiest way to pause Windows 11 updates and the most convenient as it takes less than a minute. But you must check these settings every x days.

You can turn off Windows update in SERVICES.MSC, CMD > SERVICES.MSC > Windows Update > Right Click to Disable.

Another possibility is that the Windows update is incompatible with the hardware drivers on your computer, so it caused a black screen. So maybe it will be solved after the next hardware driver update.

Hope this issue will be fixed in next update.

Thanks for your patience and have a great day!

Best Regards,

Lenka | Microsoft Community Support Specialist