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Intermittent Black Screen - Rift S, <1 week old

Anonymous
Not applicable
Hi, I just got my Rift S a few days ago and set it up without any issues.  I basically bought the Rift just to play Beat Saber and so far, it's been very underwhelming due to intermittent black screens in the middle of play.  I am playing through Steam on a Gigabyte Aero 15 laptop with a Geforce 1070 gfx card that I bought earlier this Spring.  

I have tried this proposed fix on Steam:
I had this problem too. However, deleting the "C:\Users\<user>\AppData\LocalLow\Hyperbolic Magnetism\" caused med to LOSE ALL my scores. My solution was to 
(1) rename the folder to "Hyperbolic Magnetism.old", 
(2) start the game, which created a new folder "Hyperbolic Magnetism" with a default settings.cfg, 
(3) copy the settings.cfg from the new to the old folder, 
(4) exit the game, and
(5) remove the new folder and rename the old back to just "Hyperbolic Magnetism". 
You might also want to hold onto the settings.cfg, so you can just copy it back incase it becomes empty again, atleast until this bug is fixed.
I have also tried restarting the computer, unplugging and replugging all cords in every order possible, checking all drivers (gfx, oculus, etc.) are up to date, taking part the face mask and unplugging & replugging the DP cable, task manager closing every unnecessary app, and a few other things.

Any thoughts or suggestions of other things to try?

12 REPLIES 12

sraura
Heroic Explorer
Not sure if helps to know, that many MSI laptop users have had their black screen fixed with manufacturers drivers... You should find yours from gigabyte support site... They are likely much older than the ones Nvidia offers.

Anonymous
Not applicable

sraura said:

Not sure if helps to know, that many MSI laptop users have had their black screen fixed with manufacturers drivers... You should find yours from gigabyte support site... They are likely much older than the ones Nvidia offers.


What in particular did you update?  There are like... 100 different drivers you can get. 

Also, I should mention I disabled the Intel GFX on the laptop so it uses the nVidia card by default.

sraura
Heroic Explorer
nvidia drivers from gigabyte support site... for your laptop model.

Anonymous
Not applicable
I tried and after about 10 mins or so of play, same issue 😕

sraura
Heroic Explorer
out of curiosity - what version that nvidia driver was ?

Anonymous
Not applicable

sraura said:

out of curiosity - what version that nvidia driver was ?


Now I'm on 23.21.13.8892

sraura
Heroic Explorer
Ok... could you also try the version 417.71 (geforce 10 series/notebook, gtx1070)  from Nvidia site

If that doesn't work either, it is rather likely that your laptop provides barely enough power to keep rift s alive. Possible solutions to fix that include at least;
  • removing all unnecessary usb devices from the computer
  • significantly lowering the volume if you play it through rift s speakers
  • trying usb-c to usb-a adapter to connect rift (if you have usb-c port)
  • using externally powered usb hub or similar device

Anonymous
Not applicable

sraura said:

Ok... could you also try the version 417.71 (geforce 10 series/notebook, gtx1070)  from Nvidia site

If that doesn't work either, it is rather likely that your laptop provides barely enough power to keep rift s alive. Possible solutions to fix that include at least;
  • removing all unnecessary usb devices from the computer
  • significantly lowering the volume if you play it through rift s speakers
  • trying usb-c to usb-a adapter to connect rift (if you have usb-c port)
  • using externally powered usb hub or similar device


I tried 417.71, still the same issue.  I'm using the blue USB 3.0 ports but I can try lowering the volume, though that would kind of ruin the Beat Saber experience.  I actually have some powered USB cords that I can try but I can't try that until tomorrow.

I just played Quill with the kids for a while and did not have any issues until it eventually did not detect the headset so I'm leaning towards something with the gfx card at this point.  No black screens while "playing" that game.

Anonymous
Not applicable
Did you ever get the rift s to work? I also have an Aero 15X with a 1070 and have been running into the same issue with the black screen.