For the past three months, my Lenovo Legion Pro 5 with a Ryzen 7 7745HX, RTX 4070, and 32 GB of DDR5 RAM has intermittently gone completely black. There is no cursor or visible output; sometimes the backlight remains on, and sometimes the panel turns off entirely. The problem can occur while the laptop is idle, with only Discord or Spotify open, during games, or while running demanding university simulations. I have not found a consistent trigger.
Pressing Win+Ctrl+Shift+B occasionally restores the display, but often I have to repeat the shortcut several times, and sometimes it does nothing. In those cases, I have to force a restart. The laptop is usually docked and set to dedicated-GPU mode, though I have also tested hybrid graphics without improvement.
I have already removed and reinstalled both graphics drivers with DDU, checked the system using SFC, CHKDSK, and DISM, and completed a Malwarebytes scan. There are no overclocks, temperatures appear normal, and the machine is regularly cleaned. The CPU and GPU were repasted with PTM7950, and the thermal pads were replaced with quality thermal putty in 2025. The lid remains stationary on a stand, so I am unsure whether a damaged display cable, panel, GPU, motherboard, or another hardware fault is responsible.
I do not currently have reliable access to an external monitor for extended testing. What additional troubleshooting can I do to determine whether this is a graphics-driver problem or failing hardware? I am a university student on a limited budget and depend on this laptop for coursework and projects, so replacing the motherboard would be extremely difficult.
4 Answers
Because the reset shortcut is unreliable and the failure happens at idle as well as under load, I would focus on separating the internal display path from the GPU. Borrow or rent a monitor or USB-C/HDMI display adapter if possible and test whether the external screen stays active when the laptop panel goes black. If the external display also cuts out, suspect the GPU, driver, firmware, or motherboard. If the external display keeps working, the internal panel, cable, or display power circuit becomes much more likely.
Check Event Viewer immediately after the next occurrence, especially Windows Logs > System and the Display-related entries around the time of the blackout. Look for display-driver resets, WHEA hardware errors, or unexpected power events. Reliability Monitor can be easier to read and may show whether the graphics driver or another component is crashing. Also check Lenovo's support page for BIOS, chipset, firmware, and graphics-driver updates rather than relying only on generic Windows drivers.
Back up your important files now before doing more testing. Since the laptop is several years old and the problem persists after driver cleanup, mode changes, and system-file checks, a hardware fault is becoming plausible. A repair shop could test the panel and cable without replacing the motherboard immediately. Ask for a diagnostic-only estimate and explain that you need the fault isolated before authorizing any parts.
Try testing with a clean, stable driver version and disable features that can cause intermittent display hangs, such as hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling, variable refresh rate, panel overdrive, and browser or chat-app hardware acceleration. Temporarily use only one graphics mode at a time and avoid dock-related variables. If the issue continues in BIOS, during a Linux live session, or before Windows loads, that strongly points to hardware rather than Windows.
A live Linux USB is a useful low-cost test since it avoids the installed Windows drivers. It will not prove every hardware fault, but a blackout there would make a Windows-only explanation much less likely.
The Event Viewer logs may not identify the exact failed part, but the timestamps can still show whether Windows is detecting a GPU timeout or hardware error before the forced restart.