Screen appears in grey and black, signaling an end.
Screen appears in grey and black, signaling an end.
I experience a problem that happens intermittently on my self-assembled Windows 11 machine.
I can hear the system "ping" and it appears to load normally, but no image appears on the screen—just a neutral grey.
Pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del results in a black screen, though nothing further occurs.
If I press Escape, I return to the grey display.
Occasionally the grey tone shifts to a blue hue.
The only workaround is holding the power button to force shutdown; after rebooting, I can't access BIOS, the post-screen isn’t visible, and the Windows loading indicator doesn’t appear.
Then it returns to the grey or black screen.
Using Win+Ctrl+Shift+B causes a "ping" with the screen flashing between grey and black, but no further action.
My approach is to repeatedly shut down the computer until the repair tool starts, after which I can attempt to boot again.
The system remains stable otherwise, handling office work, gaming, and other tasks without issues.
Event Viewer and Reliability Monitor consistently report a critical event each time, with no other significant logs.
It indicates "Windows was not properly shut down," specifically noting Kernel-Power and Event ID 41.
My setup includes: Windows 11 IoT LTSC, ASUS ProArt X870e Creators WiFi, Seasonic 860W Platinum, AMD Ryzen 7 98000x3D, Asus GeForce GTX 4070 Super OC 12GB, Corsair Vengeance DDR5 6000Mhz 64GB, and Samsung 990 Pro M.2 2TB SSD.
I would greatly appreciate assistance in resolving this bothersome issue.
"Event ID 41" just means the system is powering off unexpectedly, without any clear reason. It happens similarly during random power cuts. This isn't a separate fault. I might try using a regular Windows 11 (Home or Pro) versus the IoT LTSC version. Get another drive and install it there.
Welcome to the forums, newcomer! Adjust iGPU settings in BIOS and observe any improvements. Regarding BIOS, which version is installed on your motherboard? For the black screen issue, what driver version are you using for your RTX 4070 Super? Additionally, how recent is your power supply unit in this setup?
Thanks for the update!
USAFRet shared their experience using a standard Windows 11 Pro setup, encountering some errors before a full system cleanup. They opted for a lighter version but still faced problems. They also switched the system drive at that time since the old one was quite small.
Lutfij mentioned they're using the newest BIOS for their motherboard (model 1401) and noticed similar issues with older versions. Their GPU drivers are the latest NVIDIA Studio Drivers V576.02.
The power supply unit is the oldest part of their system, having been there for 12 years. You wondering if that could be the cause?
They plan to disable iGPU to test if it resolves the issue.
it seems the motherboard protection circuits are resetting the cpu.
i would:
- check the power supply voltage readings.
- ensure the gpu isn’t overheating.
- take out any overclock drivers, making sure only one is installed.
- clear dust from cpu, gpu, and psu fans.
reboot issues could point to a heat problem.
if it boots after cooling down, that might help.
as a test, you could lower the gpu clock speed to save power.
it’s not uncommon for two overclock drivers to be installed over time because the vendor moved installation spots and didn’t verify existing ones.
you can use microsoft autoruns64.exe to search for overclock drivers. If you have a memory dump, they’ll appear there (lmiftsm debugger command).
I experienced the same problem on my server, which displays a gray screen upon booting into Windows, even during normal operations. I discovered the overheating issue in my room until I activated the fan near the motherboard.
Yes, less bloat was the main reason for selecting the LTSC edition, though I don’t anticipate it affecting the grey screen problem—this issue also happened with the Pro version.
I picked the LTSC since it runs with significantly fewer processes and background services, and it doesn’t come pre-installed with bloat such as Xbox, Game Bar, Cortana, One Drive, Weather, News, MSN feed, mail, calendar, 3D viewer, Paint 3D, Solitaire, or the Microsoft Store.
I also value the reduced telemetry.
The license I already possess shouldn’t cause any problems.
Useful tips, just to be clear: I haven’t experienced any crashes or unexpected reboots on this system. The problem appears only during startup from a cold state, following a normal shutdown the previous day or earlier.
I’ve intentionally skipped overclock drivers and avoided overclocking via the BIOS. My office stays well below 68°F, and proper ventilation keeps temperatures within safe limits.
I’ll check the PSU voltages—will software be sufficient, or should I use a multimeter?
I reviewed your original message, it seems the power error log 41 was caused by a reboot instead of a motherboard power circuit reset.
Therefore, the issue likely lies in why the machine fails to properly awaken from a sleep mode.
I would open cmd.exe with administrator privileges, then execute powercfg.exe /energy and examine the generated report.
If the system enters hibernation, I could create a fresh hibernation file using hiberfil.sys.
powercfg.exe -h off followed by powercfg.exe -h on should replace the existing file.
This procedure would be useful after a BIOS or motherboard driver update.
Check the energy report to identify supported sleep states on your machine.
The following time it occurs, investigate whether the monitor is the culprit.
Some units have independent sleep features requiring firmware upgrades.
Try disconnecting the monitor’s video cable and reconnecting it to see if the display returns.
If the issue persists, unplug just the monitor power and reinsert it to determine if that resolves the problem.
This approach can help pinpoint whether the fault resides in the monitor, its cables, or the sleep circuitry.
It may also involve checking adapters, cables, video drivers, or even the monitor’s firmware—issues have been reported with adapter connections on certain video interfaces. Unplugging and reattaching the adapter sometimes restores proper synchronization.