HP Omen Laptop Blank Screen

[Will_Bratton]

Hello! My name is Will. I’m having an issue with my Omen Gaming laptop, causing lots of frustration this holiday season. 

issue: I turn on the pc, see the Omen symbol with the loading icon, the screen goes blank other than the distinct backlight. The fan is still running, backlit keys stay lit, etc.. essentially the display doesn’t function.

how it happened: over the course of the past month, my screen has continuously gone black every now and then, while my external monitor still works, all audio continues, etc.. The pc functions as if nothing is wrong. Typically has been fixed with a simple restart and no hassle, just a bit of vexation. This time, roughly the 5th time give or take one or 2, the start did not fix the issue. I get the logo with a loading icon, then blank. I’ve tried opening menus by rapidly tapping esc upon startup with no results. At one point, I restarted the pc again and it tried to perform auto repairs, but it said the job could not be done. After this, however, I finally got the screen support told me to get, which was hopelessly useless to helping my case. I would like to keep my programs and files at all costs.

What I’ve tried: hard restarts, normal restarts, system diagnostics, giving it time and letting it cool down, and a few other little things that lead to no results. This main issue happened yesterday evening at about 7 PM. I currently have everything unplugged from the laptop and had it that way when attempting to run any diagnostics. However when the issue happened, my external monitor remained working as I said. One of the time that I restarted, it actually opened up the windows lock screen with the scenery and time, however when I clicked in order to get to the password entering area, the screen once again went blank.

Other info: I’m running Windows 10 (64x) and this is already my second laptop as about a year ago I received the blue screen of death and lost all my things, only to get a free laptop from Best Buy because of my warranty. My warranty expired recently, though. HP support told me just to perform a hard restart which actually didn’t do anything, not even flash some lights when I tried to perform it, so I didn’t know whether or not I was actually performing one. I tried many times though, so I presume it’s been done. If you awesome people here can’t help me out, I’ll have to take it into Best Buy and get a full disgnostic performed so I can talk to hp and hopefully get a new one. Thanks so much in advance for your help!

~Will

[Photoray002]

@Will_Bratton

IF you disconnect the external monitor and power it on, can you get the bios screen to work on the built in screen?

Turn on the laptop and immediatley and rapidly tap F10 for bios. Or tap the ESC key for startup menu.

Does that work?

If not, you definately have hardware issues that you will have to have Best Buy (or other shop) work on.

IF you can get to bios screen, your built in monitor is working. You might have to back up your data and reinstall Windows. That may be the easiest fix at this point, if its operating system related.

[Damnation]

Two questions. First have you tried fn + F3 or what ever is the display switch function key on your model. some people have to hit fn + whatever f key and some people just hit the f key to get the function. It depends on whether function keys are on or off in bios. on my laptop there is a f3 key with a symbol that looks like a square screen with a line on the right and left of the square. Like i said for me it is F3 and i hit fn + F3 to use it. It is the display switch key. It switches between laptop primary screen, duplicated screen, extended display, and secondary only screen. You may be set on secondary only and when it is unplugged it has no display to render to. For me hitting the key the first time brings up the bar on the right of the screen which shows all the modes. Hitting it again switches between each mode each time it is hit. Takes a second or two for the mode to take effect so hit it once and wait a sec then hit it once again wait 4  seconds or however long it takes and repeat till you get it working. If you see the laptop logo on the screen it should be working. I had problems like yours once and it turned out i was on secondary display and i had to switch back to primary or duplicated before unplugging or it went black on the laptop screen. 

second question Is your external monitor a different resolution or refresh rate? this could casue issues if you use it as a secondary only display. You need to switch back to the proper res and hz before unplugging.

It could also be a corrupted/missing driver causing this issue. Some omens need there batteries removed to do a hard reset. 

[Will_Bratton]

Thanks for your response! I’ll try that in a bit. Essentially what HP Support has told me is that I’ll just need to back my PC up at a local shop and reinstall Windows. I’ll let you know after I have tried that. My second monitor is set to the default resolution, not sure exactly how to change the resolution before powering off if that’s what you’re suggesting— could you provide me some more details on that? Thanks for your time!

[Will_Bratton]

That’s essentially the same answer Omen Support finally gave me after nearly an hour of useless troubleshooting. I did some more trouble shooting on my own and found that the only issue with my physical laptop hardware is actually that my battery is slightly weak and won’t work for very long without a charger plugged in! Haha!! Anyways thanks for your help, and yes I can get to the BIOs screen and I’ve run updates on it. Just a huge pain to have to go get it backed up and reinstall Windows so I’m looking for any other possible solutions to test out. If you have any other possible ideas, feel free to shoot me another reply. Thanks again! Also, you are seriously a seasoned community member. Before I posted this I was actually looking at people who had a similar issue due to a Windows update clashing with a HP software code area about a year ago causing this issue, and you had replied to almost every single one!

[Will_Bratton]

Unfortunately, nothing happens when I use FN F4 (for me it is 4). I also tried shift f4 and Ctrl f4 as I typically use shift to access the F keys. Thanks for the suggestion and if you have anymore, please let me know!