This problem started few days ago. I accidentally dropped the computer from 1 foot high and it fell at angle where it hit the left side of screen first. There are no pixel errors on the screen, so I am pretty sure there is no physical damage to the screen.
However, turning it on the first time after dropping it, the laptop worked fine for more than 2 hours. When I started playing a game on it, the screen went blank 2 minutes into the gameplay. The illuminated MSI logo (logo on the backside of the screen) also shut off. After that, every time I would power it on, the screen stays on for 10-15 minutes, then flickers and goes black.
I have cleaned out the fan and removed all dust (there was not much as I regularly clean it out). I thought the screen might shut off due to GPU overheating, but Speccy and GPU-Z always show a temperature of 38C. My CPU is however on the higher side of 51C. I also did a stress test with Furmark where temps reached 91C and the screen didn't flicker or anything. Display on external monitor works fine.
Yesterday, I was lucky and the laptop worked flawlessly for 6 hours and then again screen went blank. I thought it might be the nVidia GTX 770M that might be the problem, so I even disabled nVidia GPU and utilized integrated graphics card, no luck. Now the screen doesn't even stay up for more than 5 minutes. Every time the screen goes blank, the illuminated MSI logo also shuts off.
I am waiting for thermal paste to arrive so I can change the pasting on the GPU and CPU. In the meantime, I am looking for any possible causes and solutions to this problem. I apologize if this is a duplicate post but I would appreciate if I was pointed in the right direction. Should I just get the screen replaced?
One thing I haven't tried is replacing the RAM, although I have ordered 2 8gb SODIMM sticks for my other laptop. So I could try replacing the RAM when I get the thermal paste as well.
