I have an HP Victus gaming laptop with 16GB of RAM, a Ryzen 7 7840HS with integrated Radeon 780M graphics, and Windows 11. After a few minutes in demanding games such as Resident Evil 4 Remake or Red Dead Redemption 2, the screen starts turning black briefly. The sound may cut out and the lock screen appears, making it seem as though the laptop is repeatedly entering and leaving sleep mode. The problem becomes more frequent over time, but it normally stops after closing the game.
I also had an incident where the laptop would not wake after I closed the lid overnight. It eventually became usable again several hours later without appearing to restart. Event Viewer shows repeated Modern Standby entries with the reason listed as "Lid," along with messages about the power manager suppressing and restoring input. Disabling sleep when the lid closes stopped the sound and lock-screen behavior, but the screen still went black during gaming. The mouse remained usable while the display was black, but the keyboard did not respond.
Could overheating, a graphics-driver problem, or a faulty lid sensor be causing this? I would appreciate beginner-friendly troubleshooting steps.
3 Answers
It could still be a graphics crash or thermal problem, especially since it only happens under heavy gaming loads. Use HWiNFO to record both CPU and GPU temperatures while playing. A Ryzen 7 7840HS can run into the 90s Celsius under load, so 90–95°C alone does not prove overheating, but temperatures approaching the processor’s limit, sudden clock-speed drops, or very high GPU temperatures would be useful evidence.
Use the laptop on a hard, flat surface rather than a bed or soft fabric, clean the air vents, and confirm the fans are spinning. Check both GPUs in Task Manager, since some Victus models have a separate NVIDIA graphics chip in addition to the integrated Radeon graphics. A driver crash may show up in Reliability Monitor as a LiveKernelEvent such as 141 or 117, or as a display-driver failure.
The repeated “Modern Standby — Reason: Lid” entries are a major clue. Windows appears to be receiving false lid-closed signals, possibly from a faulty or misaligned magnetic lid sensor, rather than simply overheating. The fact that changing the lid-close action stopped the sleep and lock-screen symptoms supports that theory, although it does not explain every display blackout by itself.
Try testing with an external monitor. If both displays go black and the audio cuts out, the issue is probably system-wide. If only the built-in panel turns off while the external display continues working, the internal display, cable, or lid sensor area becomes more suspicious. Also check whether anything magnetic near the laptop or lid could be triggering the sensor.
Run HP’s hardware diagnostics by restarting, tapping Esc, choosing F2, and running the extensive tests and AC adapter tests. Use the original charger and make sure it is firmly connected. Because this is a gaming laptop, install the graphics and chipset drivers for the exact HP model from HP’s support page before making BIOS changes.
The fact that the mouse still works while the screen is black suggests the whole computer is not necessarily shutting down. Windows may be running while the display driver, internal panel, or display connection is failing. Testing an external monitor is one of the quickest ways to separate those possibilities.
Also check Event Viewer and Reliability Monitor immediately after reproducing the problem. GameBar.exe stopping is probably incidental, but display-driver errors or LiveKernelEvent entries at the exact same time would be much more relevant. I would avoid randomly rolling back Windows updates or changing BIOS settings until the lid events, GPU model, temperatures, and external-monitor behavior are known.
I disabled the action for closing the lid. The sound no longer cuts out and the lock screen no longer appears, but the display still blacks out. The mouse remains usable, while the keyboard stops responding, and Event Viewer still reports Modern Standby with “Lid” as the reason.