Black Screen After Uninstalling NVIDIA Drivers - Can't access UEFI nor Safe Mode - Erazer P40 Laptop

[Xenon_Slayer]

Laptop Specs:

17.3" Medion Erazer Defender P40, QHD 240Hz, i7 13700HX, 16GB DDR5, 1TB NVMe SSD, 8GB GeForce RTX 4060, Win11 7X9Q8

Hi,

I'm 2 hours in from unboxing this thing and I'm already bricked out of it.

The original issue I was trying to solve was that the brightness setting was not actually changing the screen brightness. I expect that it was something to do with the Medion control centre software not playing nice with the NVIDIA driver. I noticed that there was a newer driver available and thought I'd give that a go BUT FIRST, I would uninstall the old driver just to make sure everything's a clean as possible. This is where things have gone a bit wrong.

On rebooting there was a black screen. I of course left it for a while thinking it may be doing additional cleanup. Nothing. I've since restarted multiple times and got nothing, not even the manufacturer's logo (although I don't recall seeing a logo before). I DO hear the Windows login-screen chime but that's the only sign of life. I have tried several methods to access Windows Safe Mode and UEFI and on some attempts there is no Windows chime, so I assume I'm somewhat successful. However, the black screen remains.

I've come across this post of a user with a similar issue but with a PC build.

https://community.medion.com/t5/Desktop-PC-All-In-One/How-to-I-get-into-bios-Medion-Erazer-P10/m-p/1...

It suggests that it may be an issue with the on-board graphics on the CPU, assuming the motherboard from that build is the same brand as my laptops. Unfortunately, their solution was to exchange the motherboard. While I have built several PCs in the past, I think shoving an ASUS motherboard in a laptop is a bit beyond me.

[Fishtown · Accepted solution]

Hello @Xenon_Slayer and welcome
Your CPU also features Intel® UHD Graphics for 13th Generation Intel® processors.
Can you still get into the BIOS with the F2 key immediately after rebooting?

This meant you could reinstall or repair Windows using a USB stick and the media creation tool.

bye Fishtown

[daddle]

@Xenon_Slayer 

He wrote he can not access UEFI, screen stays dark.

Hi @Xenon_Slayer , you could try if you get a picture with an external monitor connected to the mini display port or the HDMI port at the back of your laptop.

If  Windows boots (even without a picture, and you manage the Windows login), the Fn plus F2 tab turns the backlight lighting for the internal display on or off;

Fn plus F7 switches between internal LCD and external display, and duplicates display  

Just in case these settings were preserved with switching the PC off (which they shouldn't) Or  did you activate Windows Hibernation?

I do not think these are the real reasons, but may be you could give it a try.

Bye,   daddle,

[Xenon_Slayer]

Hi, thanks for the responses.

Ok, F2 is not the key I've been trying. It does indeed bring up some kind of UEFI menu, although it looks like a very bare-bones set of options. It however does not render correctly. It is all squished on the left 1/5 of the screen and every second horizontal line is black. However, when I squinted hard enough I could find my way to the Windows boot option which for some reason brought me to the log-in screen but again with a 1/5 screen. Thankfully I had the NVIDIA graphics driver waiting for me on the desktop so I was able to install that.

Summary:

- This laptop (or maybe just the screen) does not like running with the NVIDIA drivers uninstalled, this does NOT sound right

- This isn't just a Windows problem is UEFI is also affected

- I will check if there are firmware updates. I may then retest and post the results here.

- Everything is fine now that I have reinstalled the NVIDIA drivers including the SCREEN BRIGHTNESS OPTIONS which I was trying to fix in the first place!

Danke