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Black screen after switching users, unresponsive

peppies

New Member
I searched for "black screen" issues in the forum, but no one ever mentioned having the problem when switching user accounts on Surface. I have this problem a lot, my son frequently logs into his account on my Surface and just stays logged in after he puts the machine in sleep mode. When I try to switch to my account, Surface wakes up to login screen fine, but often goes to black screen and becomes completely unresponsive right after I put my PIN in or when using "Hello", immediately after Surface recognizes me. It's not off, because I can hear the fan running.

At that point I tried
  • attaching and detaching the keyboard multiple times
  • with keyboard attached, tried pressing Ctrl Alt Del, or any other key combination
  • tapping on screen
  • moving and clicking on mouse
None of the above ever helps, so the only thing left is hard reset (10-second power button to turn off and back on).

- all updates successfully installed
- black screen only happens when switching active user accounts, never when only one user is logged in

Any tips to fix this? Does anyone have any similar problem when switching between user accounts? Many thanks!
 
Last edited:

Plantje

Active Member
To be honest: I don't have a fix. What I can tell you is that it is most likely not a Windows 10 issue. Not a lot of people use multiple accounts perhaps. I do use multiple accounts on my S3 and have done so on several other Windows 10 devices and never had a similar issue.

Hope you get it fixed though!
 

bluegrass

Well-Known Member
Do I understand you correctly. When one of you stays logged on and lets the Surface go to sleep and the other person decides to get on the computer, they try and logon using their own logon while the other person is still logged on.

The logical process I would do is to logon as the user that let it go to sleep and than log that person off and logon as you. If you don't like logging off, two people can be logged on to the Surface all the time and just use "Switch User" to logon.
 

dcoplien

Member
Found more by googling windows 10 switch user profile black screen. If you are using a second monitor, make sure and turn it off before switching users.
 
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