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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.

T.J.L.
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Ankit Badani
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  • anecdote: I recently (about a week ago) updated windows and then updated to newest release drivers from nvidia and suddenly had stability issues, notably the screen blanking in games, browsing, and even just using explorer. I went to nvidia and got the latest version of the "Game ready driver" that also had the "studio driver" at the same revision number. The studio driver is considered a more tested stable release. Might give that a try. Prior to last week or so, I had no stability issues. – Yorik Mar 10 '20 at 16:33
  • I have updated the driver to latest of "Game Ready Driver", though not the "Studio Driver". Where do you get that from? I update drivers using the nVidia App. Should I download them directly from nVidia site? – Ankit Badani Mar 10 '20 at 16:41
  • They have an "advanced search" page: ( https://www.nvidia.com/Download/Find.aspx ). My limited understanding is that the "studio ready" version is the more stable branch, but it lags behind the game ready drivers because of hotfixes for specific games. Also, I use the "standard" driver package as opposed to the "DCH" package. Not sure, but the DCH driver may get auto-updated by microsoft, and uses the nvidia control panel from the Microsoft store. I dislike auto-update mainly because I cannot know if/when an update correlates with errors. – Yorik Mar 10 '20 at 16:57
  • Gonna try but I didn't install auto updates from windows or nVidia. I used the nVidia app only when there were issues with the screen. – Ankit Badani Mar 10 '20 at 17:19
  • There's no studio driver for 770m. – Ankit Badani Mar 10 '20 at 18:47

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