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System Specs: Dell Latitude Core i7 8GB ram 500GB HDD
Video Adapters: NVidia NVS 4200M & Intel Built-in Graphics
Operating System: Windows 7 Enterprise
Active Monitors: Laptop Monitor, VGA Adapter, HDMI Adapter
This is a work machine, but I have decent amount of access to change settings as needed. I do a lot of work in virtual machines, and I use Oracle VirtualBox. When I'm running a VM and I lock my machine and step away for more than 15 minutes, when I come back, the screen is blanked. Moving the mouse brings my external monitors out of hibernation, but my laptop screen doesn't come back on. I can see the mouse pointer if it's on either of my external monitors. As soon as I type my password and hit Enter, everything comes back on properly. If the external monitors are disconnected or if I don't have a virtual machine running, I don't have this problem.
I recently installed Rainmeter and DisplayFusion, and this seems to have exacerbated the issue. Now, when this occurs, once I enter my password, the screens all come on for a second, then all go blank again. I then have to lock my screen again, all monitors come on properly, and I can enter my password again and all is well with the world.
I'm at a loss as to how to fix this. It wouldn't be such a problem, but if I type my password wrong, I have to wait an indeterminate amount of time for Windows to throw up the "Incorrect Password" thing, click a button (or press Enter), and then type my password again.
Hibernating the laptop (quick press on the power button) and then waking it back up seems to make all the symptoms disappear, but the VMs don't always respond properly when you send the computer into hibernation (crashing, unresponsive, etc.)
I assume video drivers are up to date? Has it always done this or did this start after a driver update? – Moab – 2012-09-06T16:04:56.470
This has been going on almost a year, since the laptop arrived. Updates are applied on a regular basis. The NVidia driver version is 8.17.12.6883. I haven't found anything newer for it. The Intel drivre is version 8.15.10.2418. – Nathan Wheeler – 2012-09-06T16:07:15.933