Later this year, the iconic blue error screen that has tripped up Windows users for nearly 40 years will take on a new, darker appearance. Microsoft has confirmed its plan to replace the traditional Blue Screen of Death with a black background that omits the large frowning face and QR code. In its place, a single, clear stop code will sit at the bottom of the display, pinpointing the exact driver or component at fault. This leaner design first surfaced in Windows Insider builds and mirrors the progress screens seen during system updates. By stripping away extra visual elements, Microsoft aims to help both casual users and IT teams pinpoint and resolve issues more efficiently, with no crash-dump exports or deep-dive debugging tools required.

The revamped error screen will be available to all Windows 11 users in the late summer of 2025, accompanied by a new Quick Machine Recovery feature that aims to bring unbootable systems back online faster. David Weston, Microsoft's vice president of enterprise and OS security, says the redesign stems from lessons learned after last year's faulty CrowdStrike update sent countless machines into crash loops. Weston notes that the goal is to deliver straightforward, actionable details about what went wrong and whether the problem lies within Windows itself or an external component. Although Microsoft briefly experimented with a black error screen in earlier Insider releases, feedback drove a return to blue until now. With a sharper focus on clarity and faster recovery tools, Microsoft is set to retire the Blue Screen of Death and welcome the Black Screen of Death.

NVIDIA has quietly released a firmware patch for its GeForce RTX 5060 and RTX 5060 Ti graphics cards to fix a frustrating blank-screen issue that appears when users restart their systems. Interestingly, this reboot glitch affects only the RTX 5060 and RTX 5060 Ti models built on NVIDIA's GB206 silicon. Other RTX 50-series cards and the older RTX 20, RTX 30, and RTX 40 generations do not show this behavior. While NVIDIA has not revealed exactly what went wrong, providing a vBIOS patch suggests the issue lies in its own firmware code. This update is delivered as a vBIOS upgrade rather than a traditional driver, and it must be applied manually using NVIDIA's new GPU UEFI Firmware Update Tool v2.0. The problem seems to come from the way the RTX 5060 series vBIOS communicates with certain motherboard BIOS or UEFI implementations.

On systems booting in Legacy (CSM) mode or those lacking full UEFI support, users sometimes encounter a black screen on reboot even if the operating system and drivers are correctly installed. NVIDIA's utility first checks if you need the update, then walks you through the flashing process step by step. Because flashing firmware always carries some risk, especially if your power goes out mid-update, NVIDIA recommends that only those experiencing blank screens should proceed. Before you start, power down your PC completely, make sure you have the latest BIOS from your motherboard maker and switch to UEFI boot mode. If you still cannot get any display, try plugging it into your integrated graphics or a second GPU so you can run the update tool. After closing all your applications and pausing any pending OS updates, follow the on-screen prompts to apply the vBIOS fix. If your motherboard does not support UEFI mode, contact your graphics card vendor for a legacy firmware version.

NVIDIA has finally responded to widespread stability problems affecting its RTX 50 series "Blackwell" GPU lineup with the release of GeForce Hotfix Display Driver 572.75. The emergency update specifically targets two critical issues: black screen crashes plaguing the entire RTX 50 series and performance degradation after system reboots when overclocking RTX 5080/5090 models. This hotfix arrives after weeks of user complaints about system instability, particularly when utilizing DLSS 4 frame generation and other advanced features. The release comes directly through NVIDIA's Customer Care support site rather than standard distribution channels, packed in the hotfix release.

According to NVIDIA's release notes, the driver underwent an "abbreviated QA process" to spread its availability to affected users. While the company acknowledges the complexity of its driver software and has "an army of software engineers" addressing bugs, many early Blackwell buyers have expressed frustration over paying premium prices for hardware hindered by fundamental stability issues. NVIDIA has indicated that these fixes and additional improvements will be incorporated into the next official WHQL-certified driver release, though no specific timeline has been provided. At TechPowerUp, we don't host hotfix drivers, only WHQL versions, so you must go to NVIDIA's website here to download the latest driver.

NVIDIA today released the GeForce 572.60 WHQL Game Ready drivers. These drivers come with optimization for "Monster Hunter Wilds," and the DLSS 4 update of "Naraka Bladepoint." The drivers also introduce G-SYNC support for dozens of monitor models listed below. This release is highly recommended to users of GeForce RTX 50-series "Blackwell" graphics cards, as they fix the various random black screen issues and BSOD system halts being encountered by these users. They also fix audio quality issues being encountered by all users when using high refresh-rate displays with DSC on DisplayPort 1.4, which are caused due to OS-level dynamic tick rate.

Also fixed are issues where applications encounter display/image corruption on pixellated 2D patterns. Unexpectedly low performance on RTX 50-series GPUs in VRay 6 has been fixed. The drivers also address application crashes and texture compression issues encountered by Adobe Substance 3D. A bug that caused some SteamVR apps stuttering with RTX 50-series GPUs has been fixed.

DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce 572.60 WHQL

Late last week, we reported that NVIDIA is investigating a software-level bug with certain GeForce RTX 50-series "Blackwell" graphics cards exhibiting black screen and BSOD errors. The black screens appear at random, there's no set way to reproduce to cause for the bug. The display head goes black, and sometimes the OS could even run into a bluescreen of death (BSOD) halt. NVIDIA earlier this week released a video BIOS update through its add-in card (AIC) partners, which should be distributed in the support sections of the brand websites. For those without such a VBIOS update, NVIDIA says that later this week, the company will release a GeForce Game Ready driver update that applies the same VBIOS update.

Unlucky owners of problematic GeForce RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 graphics cards have posted feedback across various online community sites. Press outlets started to take notice of these documented issues soon after the launch of NVIDIA's debut wave of "Blackwell" GPUs. PC Gamer has "kept track" of reports relating to black screens and miscellaneous failures—the site published an investigative article late last week, following user feedback "hitting critical mass" across Reddit and Team Green's own forum. A request for comment was sent over to NVIDIA HQ; PC Gamer received a brief response. A company spokesperson confirmed that their team is: "investigating the reported issues with the RTX 50-series."

Several PC hardware community members have documented their troubleshooting experiences—the most common suggestion involves downshifting from a PCIe 5.0 connection to 4.0, on the PEG-16 graphics port. Unfortunately, this step did not resolve black screen issues for certain owners—a member of the buildapc subreddit explored a wide array of troubleshooting channels. They re-installed Windows 11 (23H2), adjusted BIOS settings, experimented with monitor connections, and played around with drivers. Best results were produced by connecting a single monitor to their MSI GeForce RTX 5090 GAMING TRIO OC's DisplayPort, with nothing else hooked up to the other ports (DP and HDMI). They suspect that Team Green's GPU drivers could be the source of frustrations; corroborated by a recent VideoCardz news piece. In addition, the 572.16 driver is reportedly affecting "certain GeForce RTX 40-series." A smaller number of owners have discussed a "bricking" of cards; VideoCardz believes that China-exclusive GeForce RTX 5090D models are suffering the most. Manli will be analyzing a "bricked" unit at its service center, in the near future. Colorful did not reply with a comment on the situation.

Microsoft has updated the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) in the latest Windows 11 preview build to now be the Black Screen of Death. The Blue Screen of Death has been included since Windows 1.0 was released in 1985 and has received various changes over the years adding error codes, the sad face, and most recently in 2016 QR codes. The new Black Screen of Death was likely introduced to blend better with modern systems and is functionally identical to the previous version. Microsoft had previously introduced the Green Screen of Death for Windows Insider Preview Builds so if you are running the Windows 11 preview and want to enable the updated BSOD you can set the DisplayPreReleaseColor Variable to 0 in the registry editor (HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\CrashControl) and reboot.

A German website, Heise.de, has discovered a bug in HDMI 2.1 chipset that causes black screen issues on specific hardware. On AV chipsets sourced by Panasonic, and used by Denon, Marantz, and Yamaha HDMI 2.1 AV receivers, the chipset experiences a specific issue of a black screen. More specifically, the bug happens once you connect Microsoft's newest console, Xbox Series X, or NVIDIA's Ampere graphics cards. When connecting these sources at resolutions like 4K/120 Hz HDR and 8K/60 Hz HDR to Panasonic HDMI 2.1 chipsets, the black screen happens. This represents a major problem for every manufacturer planning to use the Panasonic HDMI 2.1 chipset in its AV receivers, meaning that the issue has to be addressed. The Audioholics website has reached out to Sound United and Yamaha to see what their responses were, and you can check them out below.

AMD today released version 20.2.2 of their Radeon Adrenalin Edition driver suite. The new version brings with it support for the launch of Zombie Army 4: Dead War, so users can experience the latest and greatest performance available for AMD graphics cards on the new release.Perhaps more importantly, the new release also features a number of fixes for Black Screen errors in a number of scenarios and games, of which much has already been written over the internet. There are still a number of instances where black screens can occur listed on AMD's "Known Issues" checklist for this driver release, however, so make sure to check the release notes to see if this driver looks to fix your particular scenario. Of course, you're likely always better off updating to this latest driver version.DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Adrenalin Edition 20.2.2 Drivers

After users' reports (and Tom's Hardware.de testing) of EVGA FTW 1080 and 1070 cards displaying black screen issues, and sometimes even sparking and dying altogether, even at stock voltage, the company is now moving towards fixing the issue.

Apparently, the issue stems from the absence of any thermal pads over the VRM area of the FTW line of cards, which prompts higher operating temperatures. Some users were reporting heat transfer in such quantities that even the GDDR5X memory chips on the cards were being heated at 107 ºC, significantly over their rated operating temperatures of (0°C ≤ TC ≤ +95°C).