Surface Pro 4 - Screen won't wake from sleep

Another longish post, with some new observations...

OK, after the last round of updates, my SP4 started to get really unstable again, not only with increased Intel Droppings all over the screen, but also with intermittent failure (again, on my second SP4) of Activity Center and Start Menu/Cortana.  (Basically, the "Modern/UWA/UWP" components of explorer.exe stop working, but you can still (sometimes, until it gets really bad) right-click on the Start Button to get to the old Win7 admin interfaces/tools.  Right-clicking Start was the only way I could even shut the machine down yesterday morning.)

I thought about heading over to the Microsoft Store for yet another hardware swap, but decided to try a Reset first.  (I told it to preserve my files.)

Still a major PITA: It takes at least half a day by the time you go through all the updates/reboot cycles and reinstall the desktop apps, so it's as much trouble as a hardware swap, but ~2 hours quicker (so I could actually get some work done yesterday).  On top of that, I decided to stick with the devil I know, since my current SP4 is devoid of other common hardware complaints such as light bleed (which I've never experienced) and noisy whistling/whooshy fans (which my first SP4 *definitely* suffered from...)

A few interesting observations:

1. sfc /scannow still says things are corrupted even after a completely clean Reset and applying all updates (in several cycles, with reboots).  I simply don't trust that P.O.S. anymore - I think it's lying to us and keeping us chasing our tails around an issue that is either not an issue at all, or for which there's no real effective fix in any case.  DISM if you want, I don't think it helps at all, and I'm not running an executable from some unknown schmuck on Reddit to create a .wim for the DISM dodge. (BTW, I should get a substantial refund from MS just for trying to paw through all the **** in sfc's ridiculous cbs.log file.  It's one of the most useless and obfuscatory log reports I've ever encountered, even putting Cisco to shame...)
2. Interestingly, far fewer updates were installed after the Reset than I expected.  Here's the complete list, as reported now:

 3. This would tend to indicate that the image being restored by a Reset isn't completely a local one, but rather one that includes updated components from Microsoft's servers as well. 4. Note that the firmware and other updates are not reapplied (this makes some sense, really - they're still there, but you now have no way at all to know that for the firmware updates proper, and even the drivers can only be checked by painfully pawing through the driver versions in Device Manager.  Whatever Windows Update is using to really check the status and versions of things seems to be unavailable to us for monitoring... 5. With the exception of continued (but less frequent?) Intel Droppings on the screen (especially, but not entirely in Firefox - other programs are more likely to have blank areas or faulty draw, especially in init/resize), things are generally better.  I haven't tried undocked sleep yet. 6. Start/Cortana/Activity Center functionality seems to be restored to normal.  (This was not the case with the corruption on my previous SP4, where a Reset was not effective.) 7. This could have something to do with the settings, too - most system settings were changed to default by the Reset process.  For instance, it lost all memory of the display configuration (I have an external 4K monitor attached through the SP3 Dock), and Hello is now turned off.  As handy as Hello is (and other than the new pen, it's really the only reason anyone would prefer an SP4 to an SP3), I'm leaving it off, since some have reported that helping, and I'm really into Surface pain avoidance now. 8. Power Settings were also reset to default.  I'm leaving them completely alone for now to see what happens.  The really good news is that the machine woke up normally this morning - when I got this replacement SP4 clean and updated on the fateful 2/17, I had to tell it not to sleep when plugged in to avoid a forced poweroff/reboot every time I stepped away for more than a few minutes. 9. Caveat:  I haven't restored all my applications yet - just Office, Firefox, Chrome, Amazon Reader, and Adobe Reader so far.  Win 8/10 seem to be especially allergic to some Corel software, so I'll run for a few days until I need CorelDraw again to see if there's any before/after difference there... 10. I have an SDXC card in my Surface all the time.  A post earlier today indicated that could be affecting sleep - it's a factor I hadn't considered.  With only the remainder of a 256 GB drive, I really need the storage of the card (and it sure makes restoring things easier, too), but may pull it if I have continued power/sleep problems.

Anecdotally, then, for the first time ever, it appears that my SP4 actually is somewhat more stable after a Reset.  I've tried a Reset in the past (before 2/17) with no results other than a wasted day - this time it seems to have actually helped.  (But keep in mind that this is only because the Surfce/Win10 combo sucks so badly that it corrupted itself and I had to do this ridiculous and painful Reset in the first place - It's completely unacceptable to expect Surface customers to do this just because Microsoft can't build a system that works!  In addition, it's fiddly - doing this correctly is well beyond the capability of most Windows/Surface users.)

(BTW, a quick tally shows that I've spent easily upwards of 80-85 hours directly futzing with my Surface devices in the past year because Microsoft cannot get their act together.  That doesn't count the time spent in endless poweroff/reboot/relaunch-all-apps cycles, which adds another couple of days and tons more frustration...)

Let me go back and find that info but last I recall the sfc /scannow had a "known issue" where it kept reporting something was corrupted when it really wasn't.

The start menu failure....what third party software are you using?  The start menu is connected to the user profile and there is def something interacting with the user profile to cause issues.  Next time don't reset, try setting up a new user profile, copying the files across to see if that works. I am still of the opinionated opinion that there is some software that is getting into that user profile and futzing with the settings and blowing up the start menu.

I had a similar problem with SFC after a Windows Build update.  The reason and solution were explained pretty clearly in a Jan. 15, 2016 reply by david hk129 to a thread at https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/win10itprogeneral/thread/8c57af52-0964-45c8-99e9-505e56e796ec/#3a1eb64a-2fae-4abe-9670-f6f5f27409df

SFC definitely seems to be crying, "Wolf!" to me...

NO third party software on Start Menu.  To try to minimize problems, this thing's as close to pure as the wind-driven snow as I can make it and still do my work.  (And besides, I've never seen any third-party Start replacement that wasn't just awful...)

I used to think profile was related to this, but no longer do.  Apparently whatever is causing this is in Windows, not my profile, since the profile was preserved through this Reset cycle and the problem appears to be fixed now.  (MS Store suggested the new user profile juggle and I tried that back in February, but it was just different, not better - if anything, it was *less* stable.  This SP4 started with a clean profile except for the Firefox session file.)

The fact that it's better now (and the profile did NOT change) points more to the Registry than the User Profile proper (\Users[username]\AppData\*) as the source of corruption.  (I *expect* that part of the Reset process is wiping the Registry and starting over (or at least wiping or pruning HKLM and probably HKCR, if not all or part of HKCU, too, for those familiar with Registry-speak) and this is one of the big reasons you have to reinstall apps after a Reset, even if you preserve user files and configuration.)

This did start in the day or two (not sure about exact timing) after I installed Corel PDF Fusion for the first time on this machine to assemble a big composite PDF.  This may be completely coincidental and not at all related, but it's one of only two things *I* changed around the time of the corruption showing up again.  (The other was the installation of an HP-15C calculator application from HP France (http://www.calculatrices-hp.com/index.php?page=emulateurs

• the apps themselves can be installed to use English.)  The calculator is running now with no apparent problems...) 

One other possibly relevant datapoint:  CorelDraw X4 definitely scrogged Windows 8 (forget the failure mode now...), but I upgraded to X7 a year ago, which fixed that.  Is there something new in Win10 that's brought something like the old problem back?