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While working on Windows normally, suddenly my screen turned black and I would constantly hear the USB-connection sound. A reboot attempt went through until the Windows logo was displayed alongside an endlessly spinning circle, while playing the same USB-connection sound over and over.

I dual boot Arch Linux, so I naturally tried to boot it instead: everything works fine there. Hence, I concluded it is not a hardware problem, but perhaps a driver issue.

Thus, I tried safe booting into Windows, but as soon as I enter my login credentials and proceed past the login screen, my keyboard loses power (it has key-illumination) though the desktop is displayed normally. Swapping USB ports had no effect and neither did swapping the keyboard for an old spare. Sadly I don't have a PS/2 keyboard around to try that too.

Any ideas are appreciated.

UPDATE: Performing a system restore temporarily undoes this behavior, allowing Windows to even start normally (i.e., not in safe mode). However, if left unattended for a few minutes, the problem reoccurs. How do I find out which updater/service is the culprit and prevent it from executing?

ride_on_the_NOP_sled
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1 Answers1

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Staring intently at the task manager process list after a system restore, I figured that the issue seems to be triggered by the Windows task drvinst.exe, occurring shortly after it spawns.

By chance I stumbled upon: https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/1003254/381-65-in-creators-update-black-screen/

It looks like there is some incompatibility issue with recent GeForce drivers and the Creators Update. Getting rid of them also doesn't fully address the problem, because Windows just reinstalls them through automatic driver updates.

Thus, I was able to fix the issue by:

  1. Performing a system restore through the recovery environment at boot time
  2. Terminating the drvinst.exe task at the moment of inception
  3. Disabling automatic driver updates through "System -> Advanced System Settings -> Hardware -> Device Installation Settings"
  4. Uninstalling Nvidia Drivers, reverting them to the Windows default.

It's no long-term solution, but at least I can work again until a fix is released. I still have no clue how graphics drivers can disable power to the keyboard in safe mode though. Would have been way easier to do, if I didn't have to race a driver installer in the first place.

ride_on_the_NOP_sled
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