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Often when installing new software or unzipping on Windows 10 [b. 19043], I'm getting black flashes and portions of the screen go black (screenshots below):

  • Motherboard: Asus ROG STRIX B550-F GAMING
  • CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600X
  • GPU: Asus Radeon RX 6700 XT 12GB ROG STRIX GAMING OC
  • RAM: (2x) Kingston HyperX Fury 16 GB DDR4-3200 CL16
  • SSD: Kingston A2000 500GB M.2-2280 NVME
  • PSU: System Power 9 600 W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX

I've tried an antivirus scan, reinstalling graphics drivers, sfc /scannow, chkdsk, Windows Memory Diagnostic, killing and restarting explorer.exe, and changing the resolution.

Any suggestions on what to do please?

Screenshot1 Screenshot2 Screenshot3

JW0914
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Blücher
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  • Info about your hardware will help, for computer and display adapter. – harrymc Jun 13 '21 at 13:19
  • @harrymc added the computer spec to the question – Blücher Jun 13 '21 at 13:47
  • Which `explorer.exe` are you killing, File Explorer [Background processes] or the Windows Shell [Windows processes]? Instead of killing `explorer.exe`, does ending the task of `Desktop Windows Manager` [Windows processes] have any effect? At first glance, it appears GPU driver-related or a context shell-like issue that's causing DWM [Desktop Windows Manager] to hang/crash _(you could try [Steps 1 - 6](https://superuser.com/a/1579031/529800) to double-check it's not system file corruption, but that doesn't seem likely)_. Event Viewer might be useful, but I'm unsure what logs should be checked. – JW0914 Jun 13 '21 at 15:08
  • The GPU has a pretty recent [driver](https://rog.asus.com/graphics-cards/graphics-cards/rog-strix/rog-strix-rx6700xt-o12g-gaming-model/helpdesk_download). Are you using it? – harrymc Jun 13 '21 at 15:53
  • Does this perhaps happen with all UAC prompts? – Daniel B Jun 13 '21 at 15:56
  • @harrymc yes, the latest beta driver from amd – Blücher Jun 13 '21 at 17:33
  • My driver is from ASUS. – harrymc Jun 13 '21 at 17:34
  • @daniel, I'm not sure what do you mean? – Blücher Jun 13 '21 at 17:35
  • @harrymc I think it's the same driver, it's AMD Adrenaline, – Blücher Jun 13 '21 at 17:38
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    What is left is to [Do a Repair Install of Windows 10 with an In-place Upgrade](https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/16397-repair-install-windows-10-place-upgrade.html), to set all Windows components to a known state. This is the same as doing a major Windows update. – harrymc Jun 13 '21 at 18:52
  • @JW0914 Thanks for the suggestion, when I end the task of Desktop Windows Manager everything goes back to normal. Any idea of what the next step in preventing this from happening could be? – Blücher Jun 24 '21 at 07:29
  • @Blücher I'm unsure on how to troubleshoot this in an efficient manner that's not time-consuming. harrymc's suggestion of a Repair Install is where I'd start, and if it continues afterward, it's likely either driver or a context shell-like issue _(for the former, there may be event log entries in Event Viewer, but I'm unsure of which one to look within; for the latter, Nirsoft and SysInternals both have tools to troubleshoot content shell-like issues by disabling half, seeing if the issue is fixed, disabling other half and if the issue resolves, continue whittling it down by half)_ – JW0914 Jun 24 '21 at 12:23

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