Screen stuck in black and white

I have a Lenovo Flex 4 Windows 10 laptop. Additional specifications are listed at the bottom.

I have a very strange problem. My account seems to be stuck in black and white. When I boot the computer, the lock screen is in color. When I log into my account, it is in solely black and white. When I log into another account, color is restored.

I am at a loss. I booted into safe mode and the issue was not resolved. I know it is not a hardware problem, as color would then not appear anywhere.

If anyone has any advice to offer, it would be much appreciated.

EDIT:

I have not found a solution to the problem yet, so the temporary solution I found is to just use another account. Although I don't believe this to be a permanent solution, I am growing increasingly frustrated with using a computer with a black and white screen.

If anyone has any ideas, please let me know. Thanks.

Edit 2:

One more thing which I forgot to mention is that the screenshots appear in black and white. I have tried resetting both of the graphic card control panels to factory defaults, and have also tried fully uninstalling and reinstalling both drivers.

Specs:

Lenovo Flex 4

Intel i5 7200 CPU

Radeon R5 M430 & Intel HD integrated graphics

vkumar

Posted 2017-09-14T01:47:22.470

Reputation: 71

... that's odd. Greyscale black and white? Sounds almost like some odd per user software... – Journeyman Geek – 2017-09-14T02:37:36.467

@Journeyman Geek I thought the same thing, but I looked through the installed program list and haven't really installed anything recently. I'll look into it more. – vkumar – 2017-09-14T02:39:55.443

When bounties open up, and if this isn't solved, see if you can give me a ping. This problem seems interesting enough to bounty. – Journeyman Geek – 2017-09-14T02:40:57.967

@Journeyman Geek Sure thing! One thing which points to it not being caused by software is that the problem persists in safe mode. That is one of the most perplexing parts to me. – vkumar – 2017-09-14T02:46:22.283

But its specific to an account. Also, if its software and not hardware, it should be B&W on a screenshot, and not colour. – Journeyman Geek – 2017-09-14T02:51:45.637

@Journeyman Geek I think I worded my comment poorly. I don't believe it to be a hardware issue, but I also don't really think it is being caused by a malicious piece of software. I am going to try what Karen Hu suggested below and see if it fixes the problem. – vkumar – 2017-09-14T02:56:00.987

Since you have an AMD card, you should check your Color Settings in Catalyst Control Center. Saturation would be a good one to start with. – Michael Frank – 2017-09-14T02:57:10.917

@Journeyman Geek One more interesting thing, the loading circle which appears next to the cursor when something is loading, is in color. Also if I open something which gives me the message 'Do you want to allow this app to make changes to your device', the whole screen regains color until I close the message. I don't know what significance this has, but I found it very strange. – vkumar – 2017-09-14T03:43:00.017

@vkumar The cursor is rendered on a separate layer, with special GPU instructions IIRC. The secure desktop used to elevate privileges also might as well be counted as a separate user (in fact, I think it is - run as SYSTEM). Definitely interesting. – Bob – 2017-09-14T03:45:04.453

Related (possible duplicate): My monitor is only displaying in black and white in Windows Vista.

– Scott – 2017-10-29T06:16:31.323

Answers

I just had the same problem and it took me awhile to figure it out. To fix it, turn on the color filter under "color and high contract", or push Windows + Ctrl + C.

user802539

Posted 2017-09-14T01:47:22.470

Reputation: 41

I found this thread via Google, but for me the problem was different:

Win + CTRL + C was disabled already
The Color Filters were disabled

The solution was f.lux: It has a shortcut to switch between color effects via Alt + Shift + PgUp/PgDwn and one of them is grayscale. I hit that key combination quite often by accident when switching virtual desktops and had to disable it.

zerweck

Posted 2017-09-14T01:47:22.470

Reputation: 154

Please reinstall and update your graphic card driver to see if it can be fixed.

1.Start your PC in Safe mode.

2.Select the search box on the taskbar, type device manager, and then select Device Manager.

3.Expand Display adapter.

4.Press and hold (or right-click) the display adapter, and then select Uninstall -> OK.

5.Restart your PC.

If it doesn't resolve, since this issue only occur under one spesific user account, please consider to fix user profile.

Waka

Posted 2017-09-14T01:47:22.470

Reputation: 929

Thanks for the reply! I have two display adapters: AMD Radeon R5 M430 and Intel HD 620, should they both be uninstalled? – vkumar – 2017-09-14T02:34:12.877

Yes, they would be reinstalled during restart. – Waka – 2017-09-14T03:06:12.543

Since you have an AMD card, you should verify you haven't mistakenly changed your colour settings in the Catalyst Control Center.

It's likely you have something like Saturation turned down to 0, but from memory there are quite a few options to modify the display colours. It could be:

Saturation
Digital Vibrance

Below is an example from the Intel HD Graphics driver. With Saturation set to -100, the colour is completely drained from my screen. This is a display setting however, and any changes are not reflected in screenshots.

Verify the Saturation setting in the Catalyst Control Center is not set to reduce colours. You may need to apply this setting, or even restart before it takes effect.

Michael Frank

Posted 2017-09-14T01:47:22.470

Reputation: 7 412

This might be true for other drivers too – Journeyman Geek – 2017-09-14T02:59:57.320

Thanks for your suggestion, but I already have checked the catalyst settings. I compared the settings between the accounts which have the color and the account that doesn't. They are the same. – vkumar – 2017-09-14T03:00:42.447

In that case, I would suggest trying to reset the setting to default. Just because they are the same, doesn't mean they are applied correctly. – Michael Frank – 2017-09-14T03:03:01.423

@Michael Frank I reset both the AMD and Intel settings to default, and no change occurred. When I take a screen shot and view it on another screen, the screen shot is in black and white. – vkumar – 2017-09-14T03:36:44.297