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This is an odd one that's happened at least once before, so since I'm not dying to get use of it right away I figured I'd try to find the answer rather than power-cycling it.
This morning I logged my husband out, and because I didn't need to login yet, put the machine to sleep (using the login screen icon), and when I returned, moved the mouse and touched a key, which got the fans spinning and the interior lights lit up through the side panel, and caused the NumLock and CapsLock LEDs to toggle when those keys were pressed, but no signal to my display (connected via DisplayPort to the GTX 1080).
From other devices on the same LAN, I can SSH into the Linux virtuals running as guests on the Win 10 machine and can see the Windows fileshares. So the machine seems to absolutely be running "normally" but for the display.
What should I try next? The answers I've found searching on the web sound like voodoo¹.
My long experience with Linux and Macs tends to make me overly confident about technical issues, which I try to correct for by being abundantly cautious when messing with Windows. I worry from previous experience that doing the things that would come naturally to me on Linux and Mac, like pulling and reseating the DisplayPort cable, are actually more likely to hard-crash the box than get things working again.
I tried to connect via Remote Desktop on a Mac and a tablet. Both times I got some sort of communications with the machine—it could distinguish an intentionally-incorrect password from the correct one—but after entering the right password, would hang for 90 seconds or so showing a black screen, then fail with error code "0x1108"².
Any suggestions?
— ¹ One I've just got to hope was a particularly malicious troll suggested removing the RAM, waiting ten minutes, then reseating it — while the machine was running!
² Searching Google for that error code is amusing because if you don't quote the number and just search "error code 0x1108", it shows you lots of stuff about Remote Desktop — none of which contain that error code. OTOH, if you quote "0x1108", to force Google to give you pages containing that term, you get a lot of useless stuff, like forum questions without answers. So apparently Google's learned "0x1108" as a synonym for RDP.
Trey
Posted 2017-02-23T18:51:57.323
Reputation: 260
You can disconnect and connect digital cables like DisplayPorts without being worried it will effect your system. DO NOT remove installed components, like memory, while the system is running. You will damage your hardware. – Ramhound – 2017-02-23T19:33:52.390
Thanks. Disconnecting and reconnecting the DisplayPort cable didn't make a difference. Neither did power-cycling the monitor. – Trey – 2017-02-23T22:05:42.037
I tried disconnecting DisplayPort and connecting an HDMI instead. Still no video signal, and now the keyboard LED's aren't toggling when I hit CapsLock or NumLock and the mouse's laser has turned off. It's still responding fine on the virtuals and file shares, though. I don't want to shut down the virtuals, but is that my only choice now since a hard-reset of the Windows box will crash them? I'd at least like to get an orderly reboot, but I don't even know how to do that now. :-( – Trey – 2017-02-23T22:14:48.973
Maybe this ? Disable the display shutdown : powercfg -change -monitor-timeout-ac 0 – Wiffzack – 2017-02-24T12:29:12.397
@Wiffzack I don't want the display on all the time; besides wasting power, it's bright enough to keep me awake even from the other room. – Trey – 2017-02-24T20:04:06.020