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This is really frustrating. It's happened twice now, in the past 24 hours. I'm just doing my work, and suddenly the screen goes black for 2 seconds, flashing black, then goes to the 'metro' screen saver screen, where you start when you first boot the computer on. so it appears that it is logging off. I log back on, and a FEW of my open programs (skype, dropbox, few others) are still there, but most of my programs (wordpad, browser) simply terminated and I have to start them again, restore chrome session, lose work that I didn't save in WordPad, ETC.
Windows 8 Pro here.
Please help, it would be good to get to the bottom of this. 99% sure it's no virus, I'm careful and an experienced computer user and have MSE monitoring things so it can't be a virus.
Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.
This is also happening to me, but i've found the application causing this: Foxit PDF reader.
Not always, but sometimes, when i open a PDF with that application, the screen goes black, then flickers a bit, and then shows the logon screen: i've been logged off.
Same with Windows 8 and 8.1!
If you are running a lot of programs in Windows 8(8.1) and you start hitting GDI limits, system prohibits any new input from the user until it has closed the session with a logoff and then asks the user to log in again.
You can reproduce this with the following batch file(requires Sysinternals Testlimit).
:loop
start testlimit64.exe -g 1024
timeout 1
goto loop
Good news and bad news!
I upgraded to 8.1 about 2 weeks ago now. I thought at FIRST things seemed maybe smoother and that the problem was fixed in 8.1 now - I actually had a funny 'blackout' instance early on which DIDN'T automatically reboot me to the logon screen again, and I thought 'AHHH THIS IS IT, THEY 'FIXED' IT!!!!!' (although, no matter waiting for 2 hours and trying all the Ctrl+Alt+Del's and Ctrl+Shift+Esc's that I could, it still being effectively no better anyway since i had to hard power off in the end anyway), but sadly, this was to be proven wrong in time. sadly, I've had a couple of these 'reboots' now, despite having 8.1.
HOWEVER - I have some good/helpful news. I noticed something with the instance that happened just now, that may shed some light onto what the cause of the problem is. (my instance of it anyway.)
during the epileptic fit black screen/screen flashing moment, this time I noticed, right before the final 'reboot' (about halfway through the epileptic fit), I noticed a windows it was flashing (not the one I had open when it happened, one buried in about 6 windows underneath my current one), what it 'flashed' was the screen in 'non-resized' DPI scaling resolution: in real resolution rather than my windows-set 150%? default system-wide DPI scaling size. (See I have a 2012 retina Macbook Pro, so need DPI scaling turned on.)
SO, I think it is some sort of dpi/resolution/scaling problem, or maybe some sort of bootcamp video driver complicated issue (although as already mentioned I DID recently update to the latest laptopvideo2go.com driver version, wonderfully smoothly I must say), but DEFINITELY some sort of video card/screen issue.
I do see that I have no chance to try using the MBP's Intel HD Graphics 4000, and I'm stuck with the NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M as my video card, so can't test that variable. (If it's a well-functioning driver that shouldn't be the problem anyway.)
And also, another detail: the window that I noticed 'flashing' in non dpi-scaled resolution, was a program called 'Registry Workshop' - and I happen to know, that this program operates (I'm pretty sure), in Administrator mode - cos a hotkey I setup with AutoHotKey never works with it and I know this is cos AHK doesn't operate in Admin mode (unless I set it to, but I don't as I would have to set all proggies to always run in admin mode to then make my admin'ed AHK work with all of them). I wonder whether admin programs, with the DPI scaling, have some significance in causing the issue? HMMMM.....
So anyway, with this new observation I wonder: is the 'epileptic' black screen/flashing event, Windows having an issue with DPI scaling? Something (memory, admin mode programs) interacts with the DPI scaling setting, suddenly making it switch back and forth between the two scaled modes as if it doesn't know which one it's supposed to be, then subsequently crashing (in a way that forces user logoff), as a result?
I have this issue as well on both Windows 8 and 8.1. It is very annoying. I've ran memtest86+ thinking it had something to do with my ram, but it came back with no errors. I can't figure out how to stop my computer from randomly logging me out. I could be doing anything from browsing the web with a few tabs open or playing a game. Doesn't matter what I'm doing, it will happen. Thought it could be an issue from overclocking but the problem still comes back at stock speeds (cpu and gpu).
Specs if anyone wants to compare:
i5-3570k
sapphire vapor-x 7970 ghz ed
8gb ddr3-1600 g.skill
240gb g.skill phoenix III ssd
1.5tb WD hdd
700w antec psu
asrock z77 extreme4
I have also an asrock motherboard (z77 pro), all the rest is different. However with 8.1 my issues are solved (90% certain). I have been running for 3 weeks now without any problems. I opened a lot of stuff and no problems at all (22 GB ram in use atm).
I have this issue as well on both Windows 8 and 8.1. It is very annoying. I've ran memtest86+ thinking it had something to do with my ram, but it came back with no errors. I can't figure out how to stop my computer from randomly logging me out. I could be doing anything from browsing the web with a few tabs open or playing a game. Doesn't matter what I'm doing, it will happen. Thought it could be an issue from overclocking but the problem still comes back at stock speeds (cpu and gpu).
Specs if anyone wants to compare:
i5-3570k
sapphire vapor-x 7970 ghz ed
8gb ddr3-1600 g.skill
240gb g.skill phoenix III ssd
1.5tb WD hdd
700w antec psu
asrock z77 extreme4
